No enforceable right to promotion arises without a prescribed promotional channel, though equitable continuance may be protected in exceptional facts.

Where recruitment rules do not provide a direct promotional channel, an employee has no enforceable right to promotion merely because of qualification or officiating service in the higher post. The text further notes that, on exceptional facts, equitable relief may still be granted by protecting continuance through creation of a supernumerary post with consequential pay protection until retirement. This relief is described as fact-specific and not a precedent for bypassing the regular promotional route or for claiming promotion as of right to a post reserved under the applicable cadre structure.

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Issues: Whether the respondent, in the absence of a direct channel of promotion from Trained Graduate Teacher to Post Graduate Teacher (Sanskrit), was entitled as of right to promotion, and whether equitable relief by creation of a supernumerary post could be granted.

Analysis: The recruitment rules did not provide any direct promotional avenue from the Trained Graduate Teacher cadre to the Post Graduate Teacher (Sanskrit) post. The respondent therefore had no enforceable right to claim promotion to a post reserved for Scheduled Caste candidates. At the same time, the respondent had been working in the higher post since 1986 after the vacancy arose, and the circumstances justified protecting his continuance by creating a supernumerary post until retirement, without treating that arrangement as a precedent for other cases.

Conclusion: The respondent was not entitled to promotion as a matter of right, but was entitled to be continued in a supernumerary Post Graduate Teacher (Sanskrit) post with consequential pay protection until retirement.

Final Conclusion: The appeal was disposed of by moulding relief in favour of the respondent through creation of a supernumerary post, while reaffirming that no one can bypass the regular promotional channel merely on the basis of qualification or officiation in a higher post.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of a legal promotional channel, a claim to promotion cannot be enforced as of right, though equitable continuance in an officiating higher post may be directed by creating a supernumerary post in exceptional facts.

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