In Brief
The Supreme Court held that temporary Assistant Executive Engineers appointed between 1990-1992 in Andhra Pradesh should be granted seniority from their initial appointment date, placing them above regularly recruited candidates appointed in 1997. Though appointed temporarily under emergency project conditions, these appointments were made under valid service rules and continued uninterruptedly until regularization in 2005. Applying established precedent, the Court ruled their period of service counts for seniority. The State Government was entitled to revise its earlier order without applying the doctrine of functus officio or providing prior hearing to affected employees, as such doctrines cannot restrict administrative rule-making powers. The Court quashed the High Court's judgment and allowed the appeals.
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