In-Charge Promotion and the Date of Regularisation: CAT in Saroj Bala

Forum: Central Administrative Tribunal, Jammu Bench | Case: O.A. No. 1237/2022 | Decided: 16 October 2026 | Bench: Rajinder Singh Dogra, Member (Judicial) and Ram Mohan Johri, Member (Administrative)

Employees who are made to work on a higher post “in-charge” often assume that the date of that arrangement is also the date from which regular promotion, seniority and arrears must run. The Central Administrative Tribunal, Jammu Bench, has now said otherwise in Saroj Bala & Anr. v. Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir & Ors. The Tribunal gave real relief against a reversion made after about eleven years, but it also fixed a clear limit on what in-charge service can claim. Both halves of the ruling matter to anyone drafting an original application in a promotion or regularisation dispute.

Facts in brief

The two applicants were Physical Education Teachers in the Department of Youth Services and Sports. To become eligible for promotion as Physical Education Master, they sought permission through the departmental channel to study for the BPE course, and the Director of the department granted it. After qualifying, they were placed as In-charge Physical Education Masters, one by an order of 21 October 2011 and the other by an order of 5 June 2012. They worked on the higher post for almost eleven years.

On 28 April 2022 the department withdrew those placements and reverted them to the post of Physical Education Teacher. The stated ground was that the permission to study had not come from the competent authority. A committee had looked into the grant of permission, leave and attendance during the courses, and ex post facto approval was refused on its recommendation. The applicants challenged the reversion and asked for regularisation from the dates of their in-charge placements, with seniority, in-situ promotion and arrears.

The coordinate bench ruling relied on

The Tribunal found that the controversy was no longer open. The same reversion communications of 28 April 2022 had been examined in Jatinder Singh v. UT of J&K, O.A. No. 552/2022, decided on 4 February 2026. In that case the Tribunal had held that employees who apply through the proper channel and act on permission given by the department cannot be made to suffer for an irregularity that was not theirs. It also weighed the long years of service on the higher post, the lack of any hearing before withdrawal, and the department’s unequal treatment of similarly placed employees, and it quashed the reversion and the related inquiry reports.

Applying that decision, the Bench recorded that the facts were substantially identical and that the respondents had shown no material distinction. It stated that similarly situated employees should ordinarily receive similar treatment, and that a different view should not be taken without a real difference in the facts.

What the Tribunal held

Reversion quashed. The communications of 28 April 2022, and the inquiry report and decision of January 2022 so far as they formed the basis of the reversion, were set aside as regards the applicants.
No hearing, long service. The Bench noted that the placements were withdrawn after nearly eleven years without a proper opportunity of hearing. If there was an irregularity in how permission was granted, the department had to examine it fairly and in accordance with law.
Restoration and regularisation. The respondents must restore the applicants as In-charge Physical Education Masters and regularise their promotion to the post of Physical Education Master.
The limit. The Tribunal said that an in-charge arrangement is generally temporary and does not by itself give an automatic right to regular promotion from the date of placement. Regular promotion depends on eligibility, vacancies, seniority and the service rules. The date of regular promotion therefore need not be 5 June 2012 or 21 October 2011. The respondents are to fix the actual dates of entitlement under the applicable rules and in line with the treatment given to similarly situated employees.
Consequential benefits. Seniority, pay fixation, arrears and other admissible benefits follow from the dates on which regular promotion becomes due. Money for the period of actual work on the higher post is to be regulated by the applicable rules.
Time limit. The whole exercise is to be completed within twelve weeks of receiving a certified copy of the judgment. No costs were awarded.

Why the ruling is useful to practitioners

It separates two questions that are often run together. The first is whether the department acted lawfully in withdrawing an arrangement it had allowed to continue for years. The second is from what date regular promotion and its benefits can be claimed. The Tribunal answered the first in the employees’ favour, and answered the second by looking to the rules rather than to the in-charge order.

Departmental irregularity and the employee. Where the employee did what the procedure required and relied on the department’s own permission, the Bench was not willing to let the department rely on its own defect. This is a useful position to plead where a department tries to undo long-standing arrangements on a technical ground.

Parity with similarly placed employees. The Tribunal gave weight to the fact that others in comparable positions had been regularised. When pleading, it helps to place the comparison on record with names, orders and dates, because the relief turned in part on equal treatment.

Pleading the date of relief. The applicants here asked for regularisation from the date of in-charge placement and did not get that. An application that pleads eligibility under the recruitment rules, the position of vacancies in the relevant years, and the stage at which a DPC could have considered the employee is better placed than one that rests only on the date of the in-charge order. A prayer for consideration from the date the employee actually became eligible, with consequential benefits, is the safer formulation.

Limits to keep in mind

This is a decision of one Bench of the Tribunal, applying an earlier coordinate bench ruling on near-identical facts. It does not bind the Jabalpur Bench, though it can be cited as persuasive.
The relief depended on the facts: permission through the proper channel, a long period of service on the higher post, no hearing before reversion, and comparators who had been regularised. A case missing these facts may not fare the same way.
The judgment itself says that in-charge service does not create a vested right to promotion. It does not support a claim for arrears from the in-charge date as of course.
The employees in these matters were in the service of a Union Territory. Whether the Tribunal has jurisdiction over a given employer or class of employees must be checked in each case.