ALLEGED THAT IN HIS PROMOTION BOARD HELD IN JUNE 2012, THE CUTOFF DATE OF ACRs FOR HIS BATCH WAS MAY 31, 2011 BUT IN CASE OF 28 OFFICERS, THEIR ACRs FOR AN EXTRA YEAR TILL JUNE 30, 2012, WERE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION
CHANDIGARH : In a landmark decision, the Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) has come to the rescue of a serving Lieutenant Colonel in whose promotion board comprising 118 officers, 28 officers were considered with a different Annual Confidential Report (ACR) criterion citing “organisational interest”.
Lt Col Bhupinder Rai had approached the AFT when his statutory complaint for reconsideration of his promotion was rejected by the authorities.
The bench has also directed the Army to consider the officer for promotion.The officer had alleged that in his promotion board held in June 2012, the cutoff date of ACRs for his batch was May 31, 2011 but in case of 28 officers, their ACRs for an extra year till June 30 2012 were taken into consideration.
The Army had admitted the fact but had stated that it had done so to include the officers who were not fulfilling the ACR criterion till May 2011.
The petitioner had averred the same to be against policy which provided cut-off date for ACRs in every batch to be the same and in case certain officers were not meeting the criterion, their promotion boards were to be deferred till completion of the criterion with full protection of seniority. The petitioner asserted that such an approach denied a level-playing field and meant shifting of goalposts and could not be allowed in a democracy wherein the policy was sacrosanct and could not be contravened as per whims and fancies citing ‘organisational interest’.
Allowing the petition of the officer, the bench comprising Justice MS Chauhan and Lt Gen Munish Sibal (Retd) has directed the officer to be considered for promotion “by taking the cut-off date of Confidential Reports as May 31, 2011 by adjudging all officers who were part of the same selection board on the same cutoff date criterion”.
The Bench has further stated that the Supreme Court has already held that cut-off dates of ACRs cannot be altered by the government. Labelling the “so-called organisational interest” a bald statement, the Bench also reminded the Army that policies and instructions cannot be bypassed.