Service seniority follows appointment, not recruitment initiation, and later appointees could not outrank earlier joiners on these facts.

Senioruty in service law cannot be claimed from a date when an employee is not yet borne in the cadre, and direct recruits ordinarily acquire seniority from the date of appointment rather than from the commencement of the recruitment process. The earlier contrary principle was overruled only prospectively, with protection for settled seniority already based on that view. On the facts, the requisitions for the petitioners were issued after the other officers had already joined the commissionerate, so the petitioners could not rank above them in the seniority list.

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Issues: Whether the seniority list of Inspectors was liable to be set aside to the extent it placed later appointees above the officers who had earlier joined on transfer, and whether the ruling overruling the earlier seniority principle applied prospectively so as to protect the impugned list.

Analysis: The seniority dispute was not finally settled when the later Supreme Court ruling was delivered, because the seniority list had already been challenged and was under adjudication. The controlling principle applied was that seniority cannot be claimed from a date when an employee is not yet borne in the cadre, and direct recruits acquire seniority from the date of appointment, not from the date of initiation of the recruitment process. The earlier contrary principle was overruled, but only prospectively, with protection granted to seniority already settled on that basis. On the facts, requisitions for the petitioners were sent after the other officers had already joined the Delhi Commissionerate, so the petitioners could not be placed above them.

Conclusion: The challenge to the seniority list failed, and the order setting aside the seniority list to the extent it gave the petitioners higher seniority was upheld.

Final Conclusion: The governing rule applied was that seniority is ordinarily counted from appointment and not from the commencement of the recruitment process, and the later overruling of the earlier view did not assist the petitioners on the facts of this case.

Ratio Decidendi: Seniority in service law cannot be claimed from a date when the incumbent is not yet borne in the cadre, and an overruling of a contrary principle operates prospectively unless the settled inter se seniority is expressly protected.

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