हरियाणा हाई कोर्ट ने पीजीटी शिक्षकों की कैडर अनुभव और स्थानांतरण अंक पुनर्गणना का आदेश दिया

High Court orders recalculation of PGTs’ cadre experience, transfer ranking

‘Ante-dated appointment to count for teachers’ transfer merit’

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the State of Haryana to recalculate the transfer merit of teachers kept out of service due to the State’s earlier action and subsequently given ante-dated appointments with consequential seniority. The Bench held that the ante-dated appointment dates must be treated as their “date of joining in cadre” for calculating “experience in cadre” under the Teacher Transfer Policy, 2026.

Justice Harpreet Singh Brar passed the order while allowing two connected petitions filed by PGTs. The court quashed the decision to calculate their experience only from their actual dates of joining and directed the competent authority to recompute their merit and inter se position in the Teacher Transfer Drive, 2026 within four weeks of receiving the certified copy of the order.

Justice Brar asserted the controversy did not concern a claim for a particular place of posting but the manner in which the State had applied its own transfer policy. “What is called in question is the refusal of the respondents to compute a score in accordance with their own policy.” It held that the issue was open to judicial review on the touchstone of Articles 14 and 16.

The teachers had initially been denied appointment because they had obtained their degrees through distance education. Their writ petitions were allowed on May 27, 2015, with the court directing the State to issue appointment letters. The judgment was challenged by the State but the appeal was dismissed by a Division Bench on March 22, 2021. An SLP against the Division Bench judgment was stated to be pending before the Supreme Court.

Justice Brar noted that the appointment letters were subsequently issued after contempt proceedings. The appointments were given ante-dated effect from March 5, 2014, for PGT English; May 16, 2012, and March 5, 2014, for PGT Economics; and December 14, 2013, for PGT Mathematics and History—the dates from which their juniors had been appointed.

One such appointment order placed before the court expressly stated: “The benefit of ante-date appointment will be admissible from March 5, 2014, from the date when his/her juniors have been appointed only for notional pay fixation & seniority and actual financial benefits will be admissible to him/her from the date he/she joins duty as PGT English.”

The dispute arose when the teachers participated in the 2026 transfer drive. Under Clause 4 of the Teacher Transfer Policy, 2026, a teacher’s rank is determined out of 120 points—30 points for age, 30 for “Experience in Cadre” and 60 for special factors.

The State calculated their experience from the dates on which they actually joined duty. The court rejected that interpretation, noting that the policy nowhere defines “Date of Joining in Cadre” and that “the words ‘actual’ and ‘physical’ found no place whatsoever in Table B”. It held that adding such a requirement would amount to adding words to the policy.

The court further held that entry into a cadre was a matter of legal status rather than physical attendance. Since the State itself had granted the teachers ante-dated appointment with consequential seniority, it had thereby fixed the date from which they were borne on the PGT cadre. “To treat the ‘Date of Joining in Cadre’ as the date of actual joining for the purposes of the policy, while simultaneously treating the ante-dated date as the date from which seniority in that very cadre runs, is to apply two mutually inconsistent dates to one and the same service record.”

The court also held that the State could not benefit from the consequences of its own earlier action. The teachers had been prevented from rendering service by the respondents’ action, which was subsequently set right by the court. “To reckon the petitioners’ ‘Experience in Cadre’ only from the year 2021 would, in effect, make the duration of the respondents’ own default the measure of the petitioners’ merit.”

Applying the Supreme Court’s principle that the law did not permit a party to derive an advantage from its own wrongful act, the High Court said the State’s interpretation could place a teacher recognised as senior in its own records below a junior merely because the teacher had been prevented from serving during the intervening period. “It would, in substance, penalise the petitioners for a period during which they were prevented from serving for no fault of their own.”

The court consequently concluded that the teachers were entitled to the benefit of their notional service for determining “Experience in Cadre”. “The ‘Date of Joining in Cadre’ for the petitioners is the date of ante-dated appointment mentioned in their respective appointment orders, and it is that date which shall be used for counting their ‘Experience in Cadre’ under the Policy.”

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