In Brief
This case concerned promotion of junior officers to Senior Management Scale II in a Regional Rural Bank. The bank set minimum qualifying marks (12 out of 20 each) for interview and performance appraisal, in addition to a 40% written test requirement, before ranking approved candidates by seniority. The High Court struck down this policy as violating seniority-cum-merit principles. The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the selection list. It held that prescribing intermediate benchmark marks to identify minimum merit is permissible, provided final promotions follow strict seniority order among those who meet the benchmarks, regardless of individual merit scores above the minimum.
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