The high court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh has ruled that an employee whose appointment was delayed due to the government's own wrongful action cannot be denied Old Pension Scheme (OPS) benefits for that reason. The bench dismissed the government's challenge to a central administrative tribunal ruling in the employee's favour.
What was the dispute about
Raghu Singh Jandla had applied for the post of Junior Engineer (Electrical), Grade-II under the RBA (Reserved Backward Area) category in 2007-08. He was wrongly excluded from selection because his caste category certificate was treated as filed late — even though he had submitted a fresh certificate under the 2005 reservation rules before the selection process actually ended.
He challenged this in the high court, which in 2014 directed the selection board to include him in the select list. He was finally appointed in 2014 — nearly five years after his batchmates from the same selection, who had joined in 2009.
Aggrieved that his seniority and benefits were counted only from 2014, he moved the central administrative tribunal, which ruled in his favour in December 2024. It directed the government to treat his appointment as effective notionally from 22 August 2009, re-fix his seniority by merit, grant promotion benefits accordingly, and cover him under OPS, since the New Pension Scheme only came into force from 1 January 2010. The government challenged this before the high court, arguing appointment can't be backdated, seniority can't be fixed for years not actually served, and since he drew no salary before January 2010, he wasn't entitled to OPS.
What did the court say
A Division Bench of Justice Sindhu Sharma and Justice Shahzad Azeem rejected the government's arguments and upheld the tribunal's order in full. It held that since Jandla had been found to have been denied the appointment on erroneous grounds by the selection board despite being fully eligible, he could not be made to suffer for the State's mistake.
Relying on the Supreme Court's rulings in Sanjay Dhar v. J&K Public Service Commission (2000) and C. Jayachandran v. State of Kerala (2020), the bench reaffirmed that a candidate wrongly excluded from selection through no fault of his own is entitled to notional seniority from the date his batchmates were appointed.
He is entitled to the notional seniority from the date similarly situated persons were appointed, the court said.
Normally, an employee's seniority is counted from the date they actually joined. But the court said there's a fair exception to this rule: if the delay was entirely the government's fault, the employee's seniority can be back-dated to match when it should have started. This protects the original merit list and ensures everyone is treated equally, as required under Article 14 of the Constitution.
