Promotion criteria and seniority-based selection may be altered by consistent executive practice when no statutory rule governs.

Administrative instructions, rather than a statutory rule, governed promotion to Assistant Commissioner, and the note records that a consistent executive practice accepted 8 years' experience where the earlier Office Manual referred to 10 years and used flexible wording. It also explains the promotion scheme under which the Departmental Promotion Committee first fixed the field of choice by running seniority, then excluded officers found unfit, and finally assessed the remaining officers on merit. The note further states that eligibility was to be tested on the date of the Committee's consideration, not by relating it back to earlier ad hoc promotions or vacancy dates.

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Issues: (i) whether the earlier requirement of 10 years' experience for promotion to Assistant Commissioner continued as a binding statutory rule or stood modified to 8 years by administrative instructions; (ii) whether the Departmental Promotion Committee correctly determined the field of choice and evaluated merit under the applicable promotion instructions; (iii) whether eligibility for selection had to be fixed with reference to the dates of earlier ad hoc promotions and vacancies.

Issue (i): whether the earlier requirement of 10 years' experience for promotion to Assistant Commissioner continued as a binding statutory rule or stood modified to 8 years by administrative instructions.

Analysis: The materials showed consistent administrative correspondence between the concerned Ministries and the Union Public Service Commission accepting a reduced experience requirement of 8 years. The earlier requirement was part of administrative instructions in the Office Manual and not a statutory rule made under constitutional rule-making power. The Court also held that the presence of the word "ordinarily" indicated flexibility, and that the rule could be modified by executive practice in the absence of statutory prescription.

Conclusion: The requirement of 10 years' experience had been modified to 8 years, and it was not a statutory rule; the challenge on that basis failed.

Issue (ii): whether the Departmental Promotion Committee correctly determined the field of choice and evaluated merit under the applicable promotion instructions.

Analysis: The applicable promotion instructions required the Committee first to fix the field of choice on the basis of running seniority, then exclude officers found unfit, and thereafter assess the remaining officers on merit by classifying them as outstanding, very good, or good. The Court held that the Committee followed this scheme, that the field of choice was not to be determined by merit at the threshold, and that there was no further requirement to re-rank officers inter se within the merit categories. The Court also accepted that the Committee acted within a bona fide administrative framework and that the number of officers considered was justified by the revised experience requirement and the seniority structure then prevailing.

Conclusion: The field of choice and the merit assessment were lawfully and properly made, and the selection list was valid.

Issue (iii): whether eligibility for selection had to be fixed with reference to the dates of earlier ad hoc promotions and vacancies.

Analysis: The earlier ad hoc promotions were expressly provisional and made without conferring any claim to seniority or future selection. The Court held that promotion by the duly constituted Departmental Promotion Committee had to be made prospectively on the basis of the revised seniority list and the officers eligible on the date of consideration, not by deeming eligibility to relate back to earlier vacancy dates or provisional promotions.

Conclusion: Eligibility was to be determined with reference to the date of the Committee's consideration, not by relating it back to the dates of ad hoc promotions.

Final Conclusion: The impugned judgments were set aside and the Departmental Promotion Committee's selection list was sustained as lawful and valid.

Ratio Decidendi: In the absence of a statutory rule, administrative instructions governing promotion may be modified by consistent executive practice, and where the governing scheme makes seniority the basis for the field of choice and merit the basis for final selection, the Committee's bona fide application of that scheme will be upheld.

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