Strict compliance with recruitment rules governs public service promotion; irregular appointments cannot be regularised to create eligibility.

Public service promotion must comply strictly with recruitment rules, including substantive appointment and prescribed qualifying service, and an ad hoc appointment made outside the rules cannot be regularised so as to create eligibility. The text further explains that relaxation power cannot be used to bypass essential eligibility conditions or to secure a particular individual's advancement, especially where the Commission's consultation is required. It also states that altering a post and invoking reservation to facilitate promotion, when driven by private interest rather than public interest, amounts to malice in law and offends equality requirements in public employment.

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Issues: (i) Whether the 3rd respondent's promotion was invalid because his earlier regularisation and consequent consideration for promotion were contrary to the recruitment rules, including the requirement of substantive appointment and prescribed service under Rule 5(iii); (ii) Whether the conversion of the post and grant of relaxation for the 3rd respondent, including the use of reservation, were lawful and free from mala fides.

Issue (i): Whether the 3rd respondent's promotion was invalid because his earlier regularisation and consequent consideration for promotion were contrary to the recruitment rules, including the requirement of substantive appointment and prescribed service under Rule 5(iii).

Analysis: The governing rules required promotion through the Commission from amongst substantively appointed Assistant Directors who had completed five years' service as such on the first day of the recruitment year. An ad hoc appointee appointed dehors the rules does not acquire a lawful basis for counting service towards eligibility, and an irregular or illegal appointment cannot be cured by regularisation. The Court treated the 3rd respondent's initial appointment as void ab initio because the mandatory selection process was not followed, and held that he was not eligible for promotion on the relevant date.

Conclusion: The challenge succeeds on this issue and the promotion could not be sustained.

Issue (ii): Whether the conversion of the post and grant of relaxation for the 3rd respondent, including the use of reservation, were lawful and free from mala fides.

Analysis: The post was altered and the promotion processed with unusual haste for the benefit of a particular individual, without proper regard to the Commission, the statutory scheme, or the limits of relaxation power. Relaxation under the service rules was available only in cases of undue hardship and in consultation with the Commission, and could not be used to bypass an essential eligibility condition. The conversion and reservation-based exercise were found to be driven by private interest rather than public interest, amounting to malice in law and offending the constitutional requirements of equality in public employment.

Conclusion: The action was unlawful and vitiated by malice in law.

Final Conclusion: The impugned judgment was set aside, the writ petition was effectively restored in the appellant's favour, and the promotion granted to the 3rd respondent could not stand in law.

Ratio Decidendi: Appointments and promotions in public service must strictly conform to the statutory recruitment rules and constitutional equality requirements, and an illegal ad hoc appointment cannot be regularised or relied upon to satisfy eligibility for promotion.

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