Seniority for direct recruits must follow the substantive vacancy, not just the appointment date, where interim restraint delayed entry.

Seniority for a direct recruit selected against a specific substantive vacancy must be linked to that vacancy where the appointee was kept out of service by an interim restraint. The absence of an express back date in the appointment order did not alter the true character of the appointment, which arose from the 1982-83 direct recruitment process. The respondents could not use their later regularisation of ad hoc promotions, or the delay caused by their own challenge to the select list, to defeat the appellant's claim. Seniority was therefore to be fixed ahead of the respondents, and the date of the appointment order alone was not the correct reference point.

---

---

Issues: Whether the appellant's seniority in the post of Professor of Medicine was to be reckoned from the date of his appointment order or by reference to the substantive vacancy of 1982-83, and whether the respondents could claim seniority over him on account of their earlier regularisation.

Analysis: The appointment order was issued under the direct recruitment process initiated for the vacancy of 1982-83, and the absence of an express back date in the order did not change the true nature of the appointment. The interim stay obtained against implementation of the select list prevented the appellant's earlier entry into regular service, while the respondents later secured regularisation of their ad hoc promotions under the 1988 Rules. The Court held that the respondents could not rely on the delay caused by their own unsuccessful challenge to the select list to defeat the appellant's claim. Even apart from the service rules, the appointment had to be related back to the substantive vacancy for which the appellant was selected.

Conclusion: The appellant was entitled to seniority ahead of the respondents, and the High Court was wrong in treating 31 October 1989 as the relevant date for his seniority.

Final Conclusion: The appeal succeeded and the High Court's order was set aside, with a direction to determine the appellant's seniority on the basis of the date on which he should have entered the substantive vacancy.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a direct recruit is selected against a specific substantive vacancy and later kept out by an interim restraint, seniority must be determined by reference to that vacancy and not merely by the date of the appointment order, especially when the opposite party's later regularisation arose during the period of restraint.

---