MP HC: delayed confirmation order can't push back a government employee's seniority or increment date

The Madhya Pradesh High Court's Indore Bench allowed a writ petition by a Junior Supply Officer who had been appointed in 2013 on a two-year probation, but whose case for confirmation was held up because of a minor penalty (withholding of two increments) imposed in 2017 whose effect lasted till 2019. Only in 2021 did the department declare his probation successfully completed, and it backdated completion to 23 January 2015 — two years from his appointment — but restricted his increment entitlement to only from 1 July 2016, and later gradation lists pushed his seniority position down rather than keeping it tied to his original merit rank.

Justice Pavan Kumar Dwivedi held that under Rule 8(6) and Rule 12(1)(f) of the Madhya Pradesh Civil Services (General Conditions of Service) Rules, 1961, where confirmation is merely delayed for want of a vacant post or pending administrative scrutiny — and not because the probation period itself was extended for the employee's fault — the employee's seniority must be counted from the date of initial appointment, and increments accrue from completion of each year of service, relying on the Supreme Court's rulings in Dr (Capt) Akhouri Ramesh Chandra Sinha v. State of Bihar and Shiv Kumar Sharma v. Haryana State Electricity Board. The 2021 order was quashed to that extent, and the department was directed to restore the petitioner's seniority and grant consequential increments from the date he completed one year of service after his initial appointment.