Employees should not be deprived of promotions arbitrarily, says HC

The Delhi High Court said though employees have no "vested" right to promotion but they should not be deprived of it "arbitrarily" and without any reasonable ground by their employers.
"It is true that no employee has a vested right for promotion but respondents (employer) cannot act arbitrarily and without any reasonable excuse defer the meeting of Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and thereby deprive the employee of his legitimate expectations for being considered for promotion to a post if he is eligible for being promoted," a bench of justices B D Ahmed and V K Jain said.
The court's observations came in a verdict by which it allowed a plea of Sahadeva Singh and asked the Centre to treat him as promoted to the post of Deputy Commissioner (Crops) from January 1, 2005, against one of the two posts which were vacant since 2004 in the Agriculture Ministry.

Singh had challenged the judgement of the Central Administrative Tribunal which had in 2007 dismissed his plea saying though an employee has a right to be considered for the promotion he cannot demand the promotion.
Singh, who was promoted as Assistant Commissioner in 1999, had alleged he was not considered for the promotion to the next higher post of Deputy Commissioner (Crops).
He had told the court that two vacancies for the Deputy Commissioner (Crops) arose in 2004 and since no person working in the feeder cadre was eligible for promotion, the vacancies were carried forward to the year 2005.
It was further said that in 2005, Singh became eligible for promotion to the post of Deputy Commissioner (Crops) as he has completed 5 years service in the grade of Assistant Commissioner on June 28, 2004