The Supreme Court held that Seniority cannot be claimed from a date when the incumbent was not borne in service in the case of K. Meghachandra Singh and ors. V. Ningam Siro & Ors. The Bench comprising of Justices R. Bhanumathi, Justice AS Bopanna and Justice Hrishikesh Roy was considering appeals against Manipur High Court judgment in cases pertaining to an inter-se seniority dispute in the Manipur Police Service Grade II Officers Cadre.The Apex Court has observed that , under Service Jurisprudence minority cannot be claimed from a date when the incumbent is yet to be borne in the cadre.
The Bench referref to Jagdish Chandra Patnaik vs. State of Orissa 1998 4 SCC 456, the bench observed that the term “ Recruitment Year” does not and cannot mean the year in which, the recruitment process is initiated or the year in which vacancy arises. The Bench while upholding the High Court judgment added:
“These three judgments and several others with like enunciation on the law for determination of seniority makes it abundantly clear that under Service Jurisprudence, seniority cannot be claimed from a date when the incumbent is yet to be borne in the cadre. In our considered opinion, the law on the issue is correctly declared in J.C. Patnaik and consequently we disapprove the norms on assessment of inter-se seniority, suggested in NR Parmar. Accordingly, the decision in NR Parmar is overruled.
Therefore, in the present matter the highest court of record held that minority cannot be just claimed from a date when the incumbent is yet to be borne in the cadre. The conclusion which was decided is that the law is fairly well settled in various number of cases, that a person is entitled to claim seniority from a date he was not borne in service.
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