SC: seniority between compassionate and special appointees runs from the date of regularisation

A batch of Tamil Nadu government-service appeals required the Supreme Court to fix inter se seniority among three categories of employees: direct recruits of the 1983 batch, 'special appointees', and 'compassionate appointees' who had first served on an ad hoc or temporary basis before being regularised. The Court held that the period any compassionate appointee spent as an ad hoc or temporary employee cannot be counted to give them seniority over the direct recruits of the 1983 batch -- only service from the date of regularisation counts for that comparison. As between the compassionate appointees and the special appointees inter se, the Court held that, in the absence of Recruitment Rules laying down a clear method, the date of regularisation is the criterion best suited to fix their relative seniority, since a seniority dispute between two sets of employees in the same cadre need not be examined with mathematical precision but on a practical, common-sense view.

Applying this, the Court ruled that two named compassionate appointees could not rank above the 1983-batch direct recruits, while directing that seniority between the compassionate and special appointees generally be refixed from each one's date of regularisation. The Madras High Court's 2006 judgment was modified accordingly, and the appeals were disposed of without costs.