SUPREME COURT • SERVICE LAW • HARYANA
The Court ruled that routine vacancies, staff shortages and satisfactory performance were not “special circumstances” permitting appointment by transfer under Rule 10. It set aside all four absorptions as illegal, non est and void, and directed the officers back to their parent department.
Case at a Glance
[TABLE_START] facts
[TABLE_ROW] ["Case", "Hemant Kumar & Ors. v. State of Haryana"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Neutral citation", "2026 INSC 878"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Lead appeals", "Civil Appeal Nos. 10930–10931 of 2026, arising out of SLP (C) Nos. 12017–12018 of 2023"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Connected matters", "SLP (C) Nos. 7597–7600/2023, 7506–7508/2023, 8142/2023, 8004/2023, 20961–20967/2024, 19938–19941/2023 and 18809/2023"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Diary number", "15281/2023"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Bench", "Justice Manoj Misra and Justice Ujjal Bhuyan"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Opinion", "Justice Ujjal Bhuyan; unanimous. No separate opinion."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Decision date", "Aug 18, 2026"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Impugned ruling", "Common judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated Mar 15, 2023 in nine writ petitions"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Subject", "Deputation, appointment by transfer, absorption and seniority in Haryana ’s PW(B&R) Department"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Outcome", "All four absorptions quashed; officers ordered to be repatriated to the Development and Panchayat Department"]
[TABLE_END]
What the Supreme Court Held
- The deputation of Pradeep Atri and Praveen Chaudhary was illegal; the deputation of Pankaj Gaur and Arun Bhatia was irregular. (paras 78–81; PDF pp. 125–128)
- The absorption of all four officers as Assistant Engineer (Civil)/Sub-Divisional Engineer (Civil) was illegal, non est and void. (paras 93, 99, 113, 116–117; PDF pp. 135–150)
- Ordinary cadre vacancies, staff shortages, good performance and higher qualifications do not by themselves amount to “special circumstances” under Rule 10 of the 1965 Rules. (paras 92, 98, 107–109; PDF pp. 133–143)
- Long service and judicial sympathy cannot cure an appointment that was illegal from inception. (para 115; PDF pp. 148–149)
- The officers’ lien in the parent department would revive upon repatriation; the parent department must place each immediately above the candidates who had been junior to him in the SDO (Panchayati Raj) cadre. (paras 115.1, 117; PDF pp. 149–150)
[CALLOUT] KEY JUDICIAL OBSERVATION “Illegality cannot be cured and made legal and valid by lapse of time.” — para 115
Background
[RICH] The dispute concerned four officers—Pradeep Atri, Praveen Chaudhary, Pankaj Gaur and Arun Bhatia—who were regularly appointed as Sub-Divisional Officers (Panchayati Raj) in [[TEAL]]Haryana[[/TEAL]]’s Development and Panchayat Department in 2004–2005. They later moved to the Public Works Department (Building and Roads), or PW(B&R), on deputation and were absorbed there as Assistant Engineers/Sub-Divisional Engineers. (paras 14–17; PDF pp. 12–38)
Atri sought deputation while still on probation and was taken into PW(B&R) as a stop-gap measure. Chaudhary’s deputation followed letters from the Revenue and Transport Ministers, and the process for his absorption began almost immediately after he joined the borrowing department. Gaur and Bhatia entered through a broader requisition for ten officers, but soon sought permanent absorption. (paras 14–17, 56–68; PDF pp. 12–38, 112–120)
The absorptions were made between 2006 and 2009, including against vacancies earmarked for direct recruits. Three officers—Atri, Gaur and Bhatia—had participated unsuccessfully in the 2006 direct recruitment; Chaudhary did not apply. Their placement and promotions triggered prolonged litigation by direct recruits from the 2007 and 2009 batches. (paras 15.10, 17.16–17.23, 22–33; PDF pp. 23–50)
[RICH] The [[TEAL]]Punjab and Haryana[[/TEAL]] High Court held that the deputations and absorptions were contrary to the service rules and were products of political interference. Yet, because the officers had served for roughly 18 years and were said to lack lien in the parent department, it allowed them to continue while restricting their seniority. Both the direct recruits and the affected officers challenged different parts of that result. (paras 4, 34.1, 114; PDF pp. 3–4, 51–53, 147–148)
Issues Before the Court
- Whether the deputation of the four officers from the Development and Panchayat Department to PW(B&R) was legal, valid and justified.
- Whether their absorption as Assistant Engineer (Civil)/Sub-Divisional Engineer (Civil) was legal, valid and justified.
- Only if both were valid, whether the seniority fixed by the State or reshaped by the High Court was lawful. (para 44; PDF pp. 97–98)
Parties’ Arguments
Direct recruits and regular appointees
Senior advocates Ranjit Kumar and Gurminder Singh submitted that the High Court, after finding political influence, backdoor entry and breach of the 1965 Rules, could not preserve the absorptions on sympathy. They argued that public appointments must satisfy Articles 14 and 16, that Rule 6 recognises direct recruitment and promotion as the regular modes, and that Rule 10 could not be used without genuinely special circumstances. They also stressed that three officers failed the direct recruitment and the fourth did not participate. (paras 35, 40; PDF pp. 53–92)
For the 2009 direct recruits, V. Giri argued that judicial protection of an illegal appointment could not become a seniority advantage over regularly selected officers. The direct recruits sought repatriation rather than disturbance of the officers’ original appointments in the Panchayati Raj cadre. (para 41; PDF pp. 93–96)
Pradeep Atri
Atri’s counsel, Maninder Singh Patwalia, contended that the decision followed departmental consultation and Commission approval, without political recommendation. Acute shortage, litigation delaying recruitment, Atri’s qualifications and his service in PW(B&R) were said to constitute special circumstances. Because his absorption preceded the direct recruits’ appointments, he also claimed earlier seniority under Rule 12. (para 36; PDF pp. 59–65)
Praveen Chaudhary
Nidhesh Gupta submitted that Rule 10 expressly permits appointment by transfer, that the department faced exceptional vacancies, and that the Government’s satisfaction deserved deference. He also relied on Rule 12(5) to claim credit for prior equivalent service, raised delay in the challenges, and argued that statutory seniority rules prevailed over restrictive conditions in the absorption order. (para 37; PDF pp. 65–77)
Pankaj Gaur and Arun Bhatia
Guru Krishna Kumar distinguished their cases because PW(B&R) had requisitioned ten willing officers, both men had completed probation, possessed relevant M.Tech qualifications and obtained Commission approval before absorption. He denied that political recommendations formed the basis of the decisions and defended the State’s seniority fixation under Rule 12(5). (para 38; PDF pp. 77–85)
State of Haryana
The Additional Solicitor General supported the deputations, absorptions and seniority decisions, citing acute manpower shortage, work requirements, Commission concurrence and the Government’s discretion under Rules 10 and 12. The State disputed the High Court’s finding that political intervention controlled the decisions. (para 39; PDF pp. 85–89)
Court’s Analysis and Reasoning
1. Deputation is temporary, consensual and driven by public exigency
Drawing from State of Punjab v. Inder Singh, Umapati Choudhary v. State of Bihar, Kunal Nanda v. Union of India and CBI v. Ramesh Chander Diwan, the Court stated that deputation ordinarily requires consensus among the lending department, borrowing department and employee; serves a public-service exigency; remains temporary; and creates no vested right to absorption. The relationship with the parent department is not severed during a genuine deputation. (paras 47–53; PDF pp. 104–111)
2. Transfer simpliciter is different from appointment by transfer
A transfer ordinarily changes an employee’s posting within a cadre. Appointment by transfer, by contrast, recruits the person into a different service. Although the 1965 Rules used the concepts loosely, the distinction mattered because the four officers were ultimately absorbed into a different departmental service. (paras 47–48; PDF p. 104)
3. Rule 10 is exceptional; Rule 6 occupies the regular field
Rule 6(1) divides regular recruitment equally between direct recruitment and promotion. Rule 6(3) separately permits short stop-gap promotions until direct recruits become available. Rule 10 allows appointment by transfer only in “special circumstances” and with Commission approval. The Court held that appointment by transfer is not a regular third stream capable of consuming a direct-recruit quota vacancy. (paras 46.5–46.9, 89–91; PDF pp. 100–103, 130–133)
“Special circumstances” must be more than routine. Normal vacancies, staff shortage or a State undertaking not to appoint during pending litigation did not meet the threshold. Rule 10 may address an exigency that cannot await recruitment—such as a project needing specialised hands or particular skill—but it cannot be used merely to bypass the 50:50 recruitment structure. (paras 92, 108–109; PDF pp. 133, 142–143)
4. Atri and Chaudhary: deputation itself was illegal
Atri initiated his own deputation request while on probation, directly approached another department and bypassed his parent department; the borrowing department created the justification afterwards. Chaudhary’s process began through two ministers unconnected with either relevant department. The Court found service indiscipline and gross political interference, holding both deputations manifestly illegal. (paras 70–78; PDF pp. 120–125)
5. Gaur and Bhatia: deputation irregular, absorption illegal
Their deputation began with a departmental requisition for ten officers and therefore stood on a better footing. Still, the Court found it contrary to Rule 6(3), which supplied the available stop-gap mechanism. It classified their deputation as irregular rather than illegal. Their later absorption, however, rested on qualifications, satisfactory work and the prospect of becoming junior-most in the parent department—none of which amounted to special circumstances. (paras 79–81, 100–113; PDF pp. 125–128, 138–147)
6. Commission approval did not cure the substantive defect
The presence of Public Service Commission approval could not replace the statutory requirement that special circumstances actually exist. Nor could the officers be absorbed against direct-recruit vacancies when the rules expressly excluded appointment by transfer from direct recruitment. The Court described all four absorptions as products of political machination and invalid in law. (paras 89, 110–113; PDF pp. 130–131, 143–147)
7. Sympathy and elapsed time cannot regularise illegality
The High Court’s protection of the officers after declaring their entry unlawful was set aside. The Supreme Court distinguished illegality from irregularity: an appointment contrary to the governing rules is void from inception and cannot be validated by long continuation or hardship. On repatriation, the officers’ substantive lien in the parent department would revive. (paras 114–115.1; PDF pp. 147–149)
Ratio Decidendi and Obiter
Ratio decidendi
- A Rule 10 appointment by transfer is an exceptional mechanism, not a regular recruitment stream, and cannot be used without genuinely special circumstances or to fill a vacancy reserved for direct recruitment.
- Routine vacancies, staff shortages, qualifications, satisfactory performance and administrative convenience are insufficient unless they reveal an exceptional public-service need that cannot await the prescribed recruitment modes.
- A deputationist has no vested right to absorption; deputation is temporary and ordinarily preserves the link with the parent cadre.
- An absorption made in breach of statutory recruitment rules is illegal from inception and cannot be sustained merely because the employee served for many years.
- When such illegal absorption is quashed and the employee is repatriated, the lien in the substantive parent post revives. (paras 53, 89–93, 108–109, 115–117)
Important observations beyond the narrow holding
The Court’s strong comments on political recommendations, favouritism, service indiscipline and “political hobnobbing” explain why it treated these facts as evidence of a manipulated process. Those observations are highly persuasive for factually similar public-employment disputes, but the portable legal rule lies in the statutory interpretation of Rules 6 and 10 and the distinction between an irregular process and an appointment that is void ab initio.
Final Ruling and Directions
- The deputation of Pradeep Atri and Praveen Chaudhary was declared illegal.
- The deputation of Pankaj Gaur and Arun Bhatia was declared irregular.
- The absorption of all four officers in PW(B&R) was declared illegal, non est and void, and was set aside and quashed.
- All four officers were directed to be repatriated to the Development and Panchayat Department, Government of [[TEAL]]Haryana[[/TEAL]].
- The parent department must determine their cadre position and seniority by placing each immediately above the candidates who had been junior to him in the SDO (Panchayati Raj) cadre.
- The High Court’s decision not to disturb their PW(B&R) service, together with its consequential directions from serial number 4 onward, was set aside.
- Because the absorptions were void and repatriation followed, the Supreme Court did not decide the competing Rule 12(5) seniority claims in PW(B&R).
- All civil appeals were disposed of in these terms. (paras 116–119; PDF pp. 149–151)
Statutes and Rules Involved
- Constitution of India: Articles 14 and 16 were invoked in the submissions on equality and fair access to public employment; Article 226 concerned the High Court’s remedial power; the 1965 Rules were framed under the proviso to Article 309.
- Punjab Service of Engineers, Class II, P.W.D. (Buildings and Roads Branch) Rules, 1965, as adopted by [[TEAL]]Haryana[[/TEAL]]: Rules 2(3), 2(4), 2(9), 2(10), 2(12), 2(15), 6(1), 6(3), 7(4), 10, 11(1), 12(1), 12(5) and 21.
- Rule 6: 50 per cent direct recruitment and 50 per cent promotion; limited stop-gap promotion under Rule 6(3).
- Rule 10: appointment by transfer only in special circumstances and with Commission approval.
- Rule 12(5): seniority of an Assistant Engineer appointed by transfer; ultimately not adjudicated because the absorptions themselves were void.
Key Precedents and Their Treatment
[TABLE_START] data
[TABLE_HEAD] ["Precedent", "Treatment in this judgment"]
[TABLE_ROW] ["State of Punjab v. Inder Singh, (1997) 8 SCC 372", "Applied for deputation as temporary service outside the cadre, requiring consent and ordinarily followed by return to the parent department."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Umapati Choudhary v. State of Bihar, (1999) 4 SCC 659", "Applied for the three-way consensual nature of deputation and its public-interest foundation."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Kunal Nanda v. Union of India, (2000) 5 SCC 362", "Applied for the rule that a deputationist has no vested right to remain or be absorbed unless a binding rule creates that right."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["CBI v. Ramesh Chander Diwan, 2025 SCC OnLine SC 871", "Applied as the recent synthesis: deputation meets public-service exigency, preserves the parent relationship and normally ends in repatriation."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Chief Engineer v. K.S. Brar, 1988 Supp SCC 756", "Distinguished/limited. The earlier case did not decide validity under Rule 10 because that challenge had been given up; it addressed seniority under Rule 12(5)."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3), (2006) 4 SCC 1", "Applied for the principle that an appointment made in violation of governing rules cannot be regularised through sympathy or long continuation."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["Ramlal Khurana v. State of Punjab, (1989) 4 SCC 99", "Applied on lien: a civil servant cannot hold two substantive liens, but the parent lien revives when the unlawful absorption is terminated."]
[TABLE_ROW] ["M.P. State Cooperative Bank Ltd. v. Nanuram Yadav, (2007) 8 SCC 264; Nand Kumar Manjhi v. State of Bihar, (2019) 14 SCC 67", "Relied on in submissions against preserving or rewarding backdoor appointments; the final ratio was anchored principally in Rule 10, Umadevi and the deputation cases."]
[TABLE_END]
Legal Significance
The judgment gives Rule 10 a deliberately narrow function. It prevents appointment by transfer from becoming an informal third recruitment channel that can displace the constitutionally structured routes of direct recruitment and promotion. The ruling also separates three questions that are often blurred in service litigation: whether the initial deputation was lawful, whether permanent absorption was authorised, and whether seniority could follow. Here, the Court stopped at the second stage because void absorption left no seniority issue to decide.
The decision also clarifies the remedial consequence of quashing an unlawful absorption. Repatriation does not necessarily leave the employee without a post: where the original appointment was substantive, the parent-cadre lien can revive. That reasoning enabled the Court to correct the illegality without treating the officers’ original Panchayati Raj appointments as invalid.
Practical Impact — Editorial Analysis
For government departments, the ruling requires a contemporaneous record of the exceptional public-service need before invoking appointment by transfer. Generic references to vacancies, workload or a candidate’s good performance are unlikely to suffice. Commission approval remains necessary, but it is not a substitute for the existence of the statutory precondition.
For direct recruits and promotees, the judgment provides a route to challenge absorptions that consume earmarked quota vacancies or bypass recruitment rules. For deputationists, it is a warning that long service in the borrowing department does not create a right to remain, especially where the original order preserved repatriation and disclaimed absorption.
[RICH] Administratively, [[TEAL]]Haryana[[/TEAL]] must now repatriate the four officers and reconstruct their position in the Development and Panchayat Department immediately above those who were junior to them in the SDO (Panchayati Raj) cadre. The judgment does not prescribe a separate compliance deadline, nor does it adjudicate their inter se seniority in PW(B&R).
Source and Verification Note
This article was prepared after reading the complete 151-page signed Supreme Court judgment, including the full factual chronology, submissions, statutory extracts, cited authorities, analysis and operative directions. The first page expressly marks the judgment “REPORTABLE”. The official PDF controls wherever secondary reports differ. The Supreme Court’s latest-orders listing independently confirms Civil Appeal Nos. 10930–10931 of 2026, Diary No. 15281/2023, the case title and the decision date. Independent coverage was used only as a cross-check. No annexure, table, separate concurrence or dissent appears in the signed judgment.
Sources
[SOURCE] [1] Signed Supreme Court judgment — Hemant Kumar & Ors. v. State of Haryana, 2026 INSC 878 || https://drive.google.com/file/d/18Nzv1xPiUA-mn43nKREyQxcU-mnfzGbz/view
[SOURCE] [2] Supreme Court of India — Latest Orders listing || https://www.sci.gov.in/latest-orders/
[SOURCE] [3] Supreme Court of India — connected-matter order of Jul 18, 2025 || https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2023/15281/15281_2023_16_63_62462_Order_18-Jul-2025.pdf
[SOURCE] [4] CourtBook — independent case report || https://courtbook.in/posts/supreme-court-cancels-absorption-of-four-haryana-pwd-engineers-calls-their-entry-political
[SOURCE] [5] LawCurb — independent case note || https://www.lawcurb.in/judgements/hemant-kumar-%26-ors-vs-state-of-haryana-2026-insc-878
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