The Allahabad High Court has upheld the policy of the State Bank of India restricting placement of Trainee Officers in the higher management grade of MMGS-II to the top 10% of a batch. The Court held that merely securing the prescribed marks during training does not create an enforceable right to be placed or fitted in the higher grade. According to the Court, the relevant policy only created a right to be considered for such placement, while the ultimate decision regarding placement depended upon merit, suitability and the requirement that the officer be suitable for a future leadership role. The Court therefore held that the introduction of a 10% ceiling for placement in MMGS-II did not amount to an impermissible alteration of the rules of the game because the officers had not acquired a substantive right to automatic placement merely by obtaining the prescribed training marks.
The judgment was delivered by a Division Bench comprising Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Swarupama Chaturvedi in an intra-court appeal filed by the State Bank of India. The case arose from a dispute concerning officers belonging to the 2019 batch who had been promoted as Trainee Officers. The original petitioners had earlier approached the High Court challenging the Bank's decision to introduce a cap on placement in MMGS-II. The Writ Court had accepted their challenge, declared the policy arbitrary and void insofar as it was applied to the 2019 batch and directed that the petitioners be placed in MMGS-II under the earlier policy. The State Bank of India challenged that decision through a Special Appeal.
The original petitioners were Assistants in the State Bank of India who had been promoted as Trainee Officers forming part of the 2019 batch. Their appointment letters provided that their confirmation after completion of training would take place in accordance with the policy then in force. The policy issued by the Bank's Central Human Resources Committee contained separate provisions dealing with confirmation and consideration for placement in a higher grade. Officers who secured the prescribed minimum marks in the continuous assessment were to be confirmed in JMGS-I, while officers obtaining a higher level of marks were to be considered for placement in MMGS-II.
Under the policy in question, Trainee Officers who obtained 50% marks in continuous assessment were required to be confirmed, with a lower qualifying threshold of 45% for candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Persons with Disabilities categories. A separate threshold of 75% marks was prescribed for consideration for placement in MMGS-II, with the threshold being 70% for SC and ST candidates. The wording used in the two provisions became central to the dispute before the High Court. The Court noted that the policy deliberately used the expression “shall be confirmed” for one purpose and “shall be considered” for the other.
The distinction between these two expressions was treated by the Division Bench as significant. The Court held that the language “shall be confirmed” created an entitlement to confirmation once the prescribed conditions were fulfilled, whereas the expression “shall be considered” did not create an equivalent entitlement to placement in MMGS-II. Instead, it only created eligibility to enter the zone of consideration. The Court held that the two phrases could not be treated as having the same meaning because they were grammatically different and had been deliberately used in different contexts for different purposes.
The Bank's decision to introduce the 10% cap arose while the 2019 batch was still undergoing assessment. A note placed before the competent Committee recorded concerns regarding the rigour of the assessment process. The Bank also received feedback that officers who had been placed in MMGS-II were sometimes lacking the experience and maturity considered necessary for middle-management positions. Against this background, the Bank issued an e-circular introducing a restriction under which placement in MMGS-II would be limited to 10% of the batch strength, with the policy being made applicable from the 2019 batch onwards.
The original petitioners challenged the new restriction on the ground that the policy applicable when they entered training had contemplated placement in MMGS-II upon securing the prescribed marks. Their contention was that the subsequent introduction of the 10% ceiling altered the conditions applicable to them after they had already commenced their training and assessment. The Writ Court accepted their contention and held the new policy to be arbitrary and void in its application to the 2019 batch. It consequently directed that the petitioners be placed in MMGS-II in accordance with the earlier policy.
The Division Bench, however, took a different view. It examined the governing State Bank of India Officers' Service Rules, 1992, and found that the substantive right concerning confirmation and placement arose from the statutory rules rather than merely from the training policy issued by the Bank's Central Human Resources Committee. Rule 16(1), along with its first proviso, gave the Bank discretion concerning placement of a Probationary Officer or Trainee Officer in MMGS-II. The exercise of that discretion was subject to considerations of merit and suitability for a future leadership role.
The Court therefore held that confirmation in service did not automatically result in placement in MMGS-II. The fact that an officer was confirmed after successfully completing the training requirements did not create an additional right to be placed in the higher grade. The Rules specifically preserved the Bank's discretion to assess whether the officer was suitable for a future leadership position. Thus, even an officer who had achieved the prescribed minimum marks could not claim MMGS-II placement as a matter of right solely on the basis of those marks.
The Bench relied upon the distinction between “consider” and “determine” while interpreting the language of the policy. Referring to the Supreme Court's decision in Divisional Personnel Officer, Southern Railway v. T.R. Chellapan, the Court observed that the word “consider” does not necessarily mean that the person considered must ultimately be selected or granted the benefit. In the present case, the prescribed higher marks only enabled an officer to enter the zone in which his or her candidature could be considered for MMGS-II. Suitability for a future leadership role remained an additional requirement under the governing Rules.
The Court accordingly concluded that the minimum marks obtained during training could never, by themselves, be sufficient to claim placement or fitment in MMGS-II. The statutory Rules continued to vest the Bank with discretion to determine suitability. The Court held that the training policy had to be read consistently with those Rules and that the higher marks merely constituted a threshold for consideration rather than an automatic qualification for appointment to the higher grade.
The Court also examined the actual implementation of the earlier policy in previous batches. It noted that a very large proportion of officers from earlier batches had been placed in MMGS-II merely upon achieving the minimum prescribed marks. In the 2017 batch, 807 out of 816 Trainee Officers and 1,445 out of 1,592 Probationary Officers had been placed in MMGS-II. In the 2018 batch, 1,497 out of 1,524 Trainee Officers had similarly received placement. The Court considered these figures while examining the argument that the earlier policy had created a substantive entitlement to placement.
According to the Court, the fact that the Bank had previously placed a large number of officers in MMGS-II based largely on their training marks did not transform the policy into an enforceable right. Past implementation could not override the language of the governing Rules. Since the marks determining eligibility for consideration had not themselves been increased, the introduction of a 10% cap could not be treated as changing the substantive qualification or altering the rules applicable to the officers in the manner alleged by the petitioners.
The Court specifically rejected the argument that the new policy amounted to changing the rules of the game midway. It held that such an argument could succeed only if the earlier policy had vested a substantive right in the officers to receive MMGS-II placement solely on the basis of obtaining the prescribed marks. Since the earlier policy merely entitled qualifying officers to be considered, no such substantive right had accrued. Consequently, limiting the number of officers who could ultimately be placed in the higher grade did not amount to an impermissible retrospective alteration of the conditions.
The Division Bench also considered the allegation of discrimination between different batches of officers. The petitioners had relied upon the fact that officers belonging to an earlier batch had been dealt with under the old policy, while the 2019 batch was subjected to the 10% ceiling. The Court found a rational basis for distinguishing between the batches. The 2018 batch Trainee Officers had already undergone assessment under the earlier policy before the new policy was issued, whereas the assessment of the 2019 batch was still pending when the new policy was introduced.
The Court also noted that the Probationary Officers belonging to the 2019 batch had not challenged the new policy. This was another circumstance considered while examining the allegation of unequal treatment. The Court found that the difference in treatment between the earlier batch and the 2019 batch could be explained by the different stages at which their assessments stood when the policy was changed. It therefore did not find an impermissible discrimination arising from the application of the new policy to the 2019 batch.
The Bench reiterated that the distinction between confirmation and placement was central to the entire dispute. Confirmation related to continuation of the officer in service after completion of the prescribed training and fulfilment of the applicable conditions. Placement in MMGS-II, on the other hand, involved consideration of additional factors, including suitability for a future leadership role. The Court therefore held that the two stages could not be treated as interchangeable merely because both appeared in the same training policy.
The Court further held that the statutory character of Rule 16 was decisive. Since the Rule itself granted the Bank discretion concerning placement in MMGS-II, a training policy could not be interpreted as eliminating that discretion unless the language clearly required such a result. The Court found no such language in the policy. Instead, the deliberate use of the expression “shall be considered” demonstrated that the policy preserved a distinction between eligibility for consideration and the final decision on placement.
The High Court also considered the principle laid down by the Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Subhash Chander Marwaha. The Division Bench found the Bank's action to be protected by the ratio of that decision. The Court held that fulfilling the prescribed eligibility conditions does not necessarily confer an absolute right to appointment or placement where the governing framework leaves room for selection based upon merit, suitability or other permissible considerations.
The Division Bench consequently allowed the Special Appeal filed by the State Bank of India and dismissed the original writ petition. The earlier judgment that had declared the 10% cap arbitrary and void as applied to the 2019 batch was therefore set aside. The direction requiring placement of the petitioners in MMGS-II under the earlier policy was also not sustained.
The case was titled The State Bank of India and 5 others v. Priyanshu Arya and 39 others. The appellants were represented by Senior Advocate Shashi Nandan, assisted by Advocate Shruti Malviya, while Senior Advocate Ashok Khare, assisted by Advocate Pankaj Dubey, appeared for the respondents. The judgment was delivered by Justice Saumitra Dayal Singh and Justice Swarupama Chaturvedi.
The final determination therefore rests on the distinction between a right to be confirmed and a right to receive placement in a higher grade. The Court held that the prescribed training marks created only a right to consideration for MMGS-II and did not guarantee placement. Since the Bank's Service Rules vested discretion in the Bank to assess suitability for a future leadership role, the introduction of a 10% cap while the 2019 batch was still under assessment was held to be consistent with the governing Rules and not a retrospective change in the rules of the game.
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