RAJU NARYANA SWAMY Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Appellant is an IAS officer of the 1991 batch in the Kerala cadre. He has a brilliant academic record and is the seniormost officer of the said batch. He was promoted to the grade of Principal Secretary w.e.f. 1/6/2016. The next promotion was to the grade of Chief Secretary. The selection to the Chief Secretary grade is governed by Clause VI of the 'Principles regarding Promotion of Members of IAS' as per Note 1 appended to Rule 3(1) of the IAS (Pay) Rules, 2016. The zone of consideration comprises all members of the Service who have completed a tenure of 30 years. The selection is to be made by a Screening Committee consisting of the Chief Secretary, one officer working in the promotional grade cadre and another officer of the same grade serving in Government of India.

(2.) The Guidelines framed for functioning of Screening Committee, inter alia, provide meetings of the Committee shall be convened on a yearly basis to fill up existing as well as anticipated vacancies in the cadre from the panel of eligible candidates. A combined reading of relevant clauses1 governing [1] the procedure for selection would show until and unless 90% of updated and complete ACRs/PARs of an officer are available, his proposal for promotion shall not be submitted to the Committee. However, even if requisite percentage of ACRs have not been written for any reason, the Committee is empowered to consider available ACRs, subject to the appraisal of ACRs for equal number of years in respect of all officers falling in the zone of consideration. While making an assessment, the Committee need not be guided merely by ACR gradings but is entitled to make its own assessment of overall entries made in the ACRs. There shall be no benchmark for assessing suitability of the officers for promotion.

(3.) The Committee shall also consider any major or minor penalty or displeasure of any higher authority conveyed to the officer in addition to commendation, if any, received during his service career.