SRINAGAR: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has upheld a Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) order granting notional seniority, promotion benefits and coverage under the Old Pension Scheme to an engineer who was wrongly denied appointment despite securing higher merit than the last selected candidate in his category.
A Division Bench comprising Justice Sindhu Sharma and Justice Shahzad Azeem dismissed a writ petition filed by the Union Territory administration and other authorities challenging the Tribunal’s December 27, 2024 judgment in favour of Raghu Singh Jandla.
The case arose from the recruitment process for the post of Junior Engineer (Electrical), Grade II, advertised by the Jammu and Kashmir Services Selection Board through Advertisement Notice No. 04 of 2007 dated November 19, 2007 and Advertisement Notice No. 09 of 2008 dated July 14, 2008. Jandla had applied under the Reserved Backward Area (RBA) category.
According to court records, Jandla was not considered under the RBA category on the ground that he had submitted a category certificate issued under the Jammu and Kashmir Reservation Rules, 2005 after the prescribed cut-off date. However, he maintained that he had already submitted an earlier valid certificate issued under the 1994 Reservation Rules and had furnished the fresh certificate before the completion of the selection process.
The court noted that while the last selected candidate under the RBA category had secured 58.34 points, Jandla had obtained 59.54 points. Despite scoring higher, he was not selected.
Aggrieved by the exclusion, Jandla approached the High Court through SWP No. 1149/2009. On February 21, 2014, the court directed the Services Selection Board to include him in the select list under the RBA category and recommend him for appointment.
Following the court’s directions, the Services Selection Board recommended his candidature on May 20, 2014 and the government subsequently appointed him as Junior Engineer (Electrical), Grade II under Government Order No. 145-PDD of 2014 dated July 2, 2014.
However, Jandla contended that other candidates selected through the same recruitment process had been appointed on August 22, 2009. He sought notional appointment from that date along with consequential service benefits, seniority and pensionary advantages. After representations to the authorities failed to yield results, he approached the court again. The matter was later transferred to the Central Administrative Tribunal.
The Tribunal, in its December 27, 2024 judgment, directed the authorities to treat Jandla’s appointment as having taken effect notionally from August 22, 2009, re-fix his seniority in accordance with his merit position, grant promotion and placement benefits available to similarly situated candidates, extend the benefit of the Old Pension Scheme and refund deductions made towards the New Pension Scheme.
Challenging the order, the Union Territory administration argued before the High Court that Jandla had accepted his appointment in 2014 without objection and therefore could not subsequently seek retrospective benefits. It also contended that seniority could not be granted for a period during which an employee had not actually worked. The government further maintained that since he was appointed after January 1, 2010, he was not entitled to coverage under the Old Pension Scheme.
The Division Bench rejected these arguments. Referring to the Supreme Court’s decisions in Sanjay Dhar v. Jammu and Kashmir Public Service Commission and C. Jayachandran v. State of Kerala, the court observed that where a candidate is wrongfully denied appointment because of an error attributable to the appointing authority, such a candidate is entitled to notional appointment, consequential seniority and related benefits.
The Bench held that Jandla had participated in the same recruitment process as other selected candidates and was denied appointment solely because of an erroneous decision by the selection authorities. Once the error was corrected through judicial intervention, he could not be made to suffer the consequences of an administrative lapse.
“It is a settled proposition of law that if a candidate is wrongly excluded from the appointment due to arbitrary action of the appointing authority in a same selection process, he is entitled to the notional seniority from the date similarly situated persons were appointed,” the court observed.
The Bench further held that denying seniority in such circumstances would amount to rewarding the mistake of the appointing authority and would violate the constitutional guarantee of equality under Article 14.
Addressing the pension issue, the court ruled that since Jandla was entitled to notional appointment from August 22, 2009, before the New Pension Scheme came into force on January 1, 2010, he was also entitled to be governed by the Old Pension Scheme applicable to similarly placed candidates appointed through the same selection process.
Finding no error in the Tribunal’s reasoning, the High Court dismissed the writ petition and upheld the entire CAT order. The judgment was reserved on April 7, 2026 and pronounced on April 16, 2026. The Bench also approved the judgment for reporting.
The case was titled State (Now Union Territory) of Jammu and Kashmir and Others v. Raghu Singh Jandla, WP(C) No. 373/2026.
