National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

service matter = High Court has allowed all the Writ Petitions and set aside the Circular No. 17 of 2009 dated 30th November, 2009 and Circular dated 12th July, 2010 in so far as they make a provision to exclude the employees from consideration for promotion, who are otherwise eligible to be considered for promotion and are within the zone of consideration, on the basis that they have either obtained the ‘D’ rating in the annual performance report or have been penalized for any misconduct in the preceding 5 years. = Different rules/regulations of the banks provide specific punishments such as “withholding of promotion, reduction in rank, lowering in ranks/pay scales”. However, there is another range of penalty such as censure, reprimand, withholding of increments etc. which are also prescribed under various staff regulations. To debar such an employee from being considered for promotion would tantamount to also inflicting on such employee, the punishment of withholding of promotion. In such circumstances, a punishment of censure/ reprimand would, in fact, read as censure/reprimand + 5 years debarment from promotion. Thus the circulars issued by the bank debarring such employees from being considered would be clearly contrary to the statutory rules. The circulars clearly do not fall within the ratio in Sant Ram’s case (supra). 41. In our opinion, the observations made by this Court in the case of Ram Ashish Dixit (supra) are a complete answer to the submissions made by the learned counsel for the appellants, Mr. Dhruv Mehta. Therefore the High Court, in our opinion, has rightly quashed the aforesaid two Circulars and directed that the respondent be considered for promotion in accordance with the applicable rules. 42. We, therefore find no merit in the civil appeals filed by the appellant-bank, and are accordingly dismissed. No costs.

Page 1 REPORTABLE IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION CIVIL APPEAL NOS. 2970-2975 OF 2013 [Arising out of SLP (C) NOS.9181-9186 OF 2011] Rani Laxmibai Kshetriya Gramin Bank & Ors. …Appellants VERSUS Manoj Kumar Chak …Respondent WITH CIVIL APPEAL NOS. 2989-2992 OF 2013 [Arising out of SLP (C) NOS.9306-9309 OF 2011] Vidur Gramin … Continue reading →