An employee working only on an officiating basis has no vested right to be considered for promotion under the rules that existed when the vacancies arose, the Supreme Court held, allowing BSNL’s appeal and reaffirming that vacancies need not always be filled under the law prevailing on the date they occurred.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has held that Hindi Translators working merely on an officiating basis against the post of Rajbhasha Adhikari (Assistant Director, Official Language) had no vested right to be considered for promotion under the recruitment rules that existed before 2005, setting aside a High Court judgment that had directed such consideration, and reaffirming that there is no rule of universal application that vacancies must be filled on the basis of the law in force on the date they arose [Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Another v. G.N. Mani Ravinder and Others].
A Bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, in a reportable judgment dated September 17, 2026, allowed the appeals filed by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), setting aside the concurrent judgments of a Single Judge and a Division Bench of the High Court.
The dispute
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had created a separate wing for the promotion of Hindi, with posts of Hindi Translator Grade I, II and III, the next higher post being that of Hindi Officer, later re-designated as Assistant Director (Official Language) and, subsequently, as Rajbhasha Adhikari. The private respondents were appointed as Hindi Translators. An administrative order of April 1994 had provided that Hindi Translators would be promoted automatically to the post of Hindi Officer on completing 3, 5 and 8 years of service respectively, but the respondents were not extended that benefit.
The DoT then framed the Assistant Director (Official Language) Recruitment Rules, 2002, which, the judgment records, were never brought into operation. Thereafter came the 2005 Rules, which renamed the post Rajbhasha Adhikari and prescribed a written test for evaluating eligibility for promotion, providing further that if adequate candidates were not available, the corresponding vacancies would be thrown open to direct recruitment. It was these 2005 Rules that the respondents challenged. The Single Judge, affirmed by the Division Bench, directed BSNL to consider the respondents for promotion without reference to the test under the 2005 Rules, on the basis of the rights said to have accrued under the earlier rules. BSNL appealed.
‘Officiating’ versus ‘provisionally promoted’: the decisive distinction
The narrow question, as the Court framed it, was whether the respondents’ case was governed by the three-judge decision in Medini C. v. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, as the High Court had held, or by the earlier ruling in CMD/Chairman, BSNL v. Mishri Lal. The answer turned on a precise factual distinction between two categories of employees.
The Court found that it was undisputed, indeed admitted in BSNL’s own counter-affidavit before the writ court, that all the respondents were merely officiating against the post of Rajbhasha Adhikari, and had never been promoted either on a regular or even an ad hoc basis. That, the Court held, placed their case squarely within Mishri Lal, in which employees working on a purely local officiating basis under the 1994 administrative instructions were held to have no vested right to promotion under rules that were never brought into operation. By contrast, in Medini C., the writ petitioners had been provisionally promoted, a materially different situation, which is why that decision had distinguished Mishri Lal rather than overruling it. Since the present respondents were only officiating, and not provisionally promoted, their case fell under Mishri Lal, and no vested right to be considered under the old rules inhered in them.
No universal rule that vacancies follow the law when they arose
The Court then applied the settled principle from State of Himachal Pradesh v. Raj Kumar, which had overturned the earlier line of authority in Y.V. Rangaiah v. J. Sreenivasa Rao. Setting out that principle, the Court reiterated that there is no rule of universal application that vacancies must necessarily be filled on the basis of the law that existed on the date they arose; that a candidate has a right to be considered in the light of the rules existing on the date the eligible candidates are actually considered; and that the Government is entitled to take a conscious policy decision not to fill vacancies arising before an amendment of the rules.
An employee, the Court emphasised, does not acquire a vested right to be considered for promotion under repealed rules in the face of such a policy decision, and there is no obligation on the Government to make appointments under the old rules in the event of restructuring, the only requirement being that its policy decisions be fair, reasonable and justified on the touchstone of Article 14 of the Constitution.
The decision
Applying Raj Kumar, the Court held that the High Court could not have directed consideration of the respondents’ cases for promotion on the basis of the rules existing immediately before the 2005 Rules. The concurrent judgments were accordingly set aside and BSNL’s appeals allowed. The practical effect is that the officiating Hindi Translators must be considered for promotion to Rajbhasha Adhikari under the 2005 Rules, including the prescribed written test, rather than under the earlier regime.
Why the judgment matters
The judgment is a useful clarification of two recurring themes in service jurisprudence. The first is the sharp distinction between an employee who merely officiates in a higher post and one who has been promoted, whether regularly, on an ad hoc basis or provisionally. Officiating arrangements, often made administratively to meet exigencies, do not by themselves confer the vested rights that flow from an actual promotion, and, as this case shows, that distinction can be decisive in determining which set of recruitment rules governs an employee’s claim. The Court’s careful separation of Mishri Lal (officiating) from Medini C. (provisionally promoted) is a reminder that superficially similar precedents can turn on a single, fact-specific difference.
The second is the now-settled position, following Raj Kumar, on the law applicable to filling vacancies. The older view associated with Y.V. Rangaiah, that vacancies must ordinarily be filled under the rules in force when they arose, has given way to the principle that an employee’s right is only to be considered under the rules existing at the time of actual consideration, and that the Government may, through a fair and reasonable policy decision consistent with Article 14, decline to fill pre-amendment vacancies under the old rules, or restructure the cadre altogether. For public employers and employees alike, the decision reinforces that a change in recruitment rules, including the introduction of a competitive test, is generally valid, and that long years of officiating service do not create an enforceable right to be promoted under a superseded regime.
Case Title: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Another v. G.N. Mani Ravinder and Others [Civil Appeal Nos. 12966-12967 of 2026]
Bench: Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan
Citation: 2026 INSC 1007
Date of Judgment: September 17, 2026