Seniority by administrative resolution upheld where recruitment rules were silent and no crystallized promotee rights existed.

Where recruitment rules governed recruitment, eligibility, training, probation and appointment but were silent on seniority, the State could validly prescribe seniority by administrative resolution and count the training period for direct recruits. The Court held that seniority need not always follow the date of appointment and may be regulated by a rational prescription where the rules do not exclude it. The retrospective application of that resolution did not infringe vested rights of promotee officers because no settled seniority position had crystallised and no enforceable promotion right had accrued on the basis of the defective select list. The State's seniority resolution was therefore upheld.

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Issues: (i) Whether the recruitment rules governing Assistant Conservators of Forests left seniority unregulated so that the State Government could validly prescribe seniority by administrative resolution and count the training period for direct recruits. (ii) Whether the resolution giving retrospective effect to the training-period rule infringed any vested or crystallized rights of promotee officers in seniority or promotion.

Issue (i): Whether the recruitment rules governing Assistant Conservators of Forests left seniority unregulated so that the State Government could validly prescribe seniority by administrative resolution and count the training period for direct recruits.

Analysis: The recruitment rules were held to deal with recruitment, eligibility, training, probation and appointment, but not with fixation of seniority. In the absence of any express rule excluding the training period from service, the Court found no inconsistency in the State Government issuing an administrative resolution to determine seniority. The rules were distinguished from a prior case where the governing regulation expressly provided that training would count only from the date of appointment. The Court also held that seniority need not always be determined only by the date of appointment and that the length of service principle may be modified by a rational prescription.

Conclusion: The State Government was competent to prescribe seniority by resolution, and the resolution counting the training period for direct recruits was not invalid as being contrary to the recruitment rules.

Issue (ii): Whether the resolution giving retrospective effect to the training-period rule infringed any vested or crystallized rights of promotee officers in seniority or promotion.

Analysis: The Court found that no final seniority principle had been earlier fixed for the cadre and that the earlier seniority lists were provisional or otherwise invalid. The promotee officers had therefore not acquired any crystallized right in a settled inter se seniority position before the impugned resolution. The promotion select list was also found defective on independent grounds, so no enforceable right to promotion had accrued on its basis. In these circumstances, the retrospective operation of the resolution did not take away any vested right.

Conclusion: The resolution did not violate vested rights or legal entitlements of the promotee officers.

Final Conclusion: The impugned High Court judgment was set aside, the State Government's resolution on seniority was upheld, and the earlier Single Judge's directions were restored along with dismissal of the connected proceedings as indicated in the operative result.

Ratio Decidendi: Where the recruitment rules are silent on seniority, the State may validly prescribe a rational seniority principle by administrative order, and such a prescription does not offend vested rights unless it disturbs an already crystallized and legally protected seniority position.

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