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Supreme Court of India11 March 20262026 INSC 229

Thanigivelu & Ors. v. Tamil Nadu Electricity Board

Bench of 2 · Justice Rajesh Bindal, Justice Vijay Bishnoi

Why it matters

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Advocates handling public-sector seniority disputes — particularly where direct recruits undergo a pre-probation training period — can cite this judgment for the proposition that training counts as "duty" and anchors the seniority date; any Board Proceeding, appointment letter, or administrative order that defers seniority to the probation-commencement date will be overridden by service regulations that expressly treat training as part of service. The ruling also clarifies that reducing a training period by administrative order does not retrospectively alter seniority already accrued.

Summary

A batch of civil appeals before the Supreme Court arose from a long-running inter-se seniority dispute between directly recruited Assistant Engineers (Electrical) of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board and internally selected candidates promoted to the same post. The direct recruits were selected and appointed in December 2000 and March 2001, while the internal selectees were promoted only in May 2002 — the delay partly attributable to the internal candidates themselves having obtained a stay on the written examination prescribed for their selection. The core question was whether the seniority of direct recruits should run from the date they first joined and were sent for training, or only from the date their formal probation commenced after training.

The Division Bench of the Madras High Court had set aside the Single Bench's dismissal of the internal selectees' writ petitions and directed re-drawing of the seniority list on the footing that all candidates — direct recruits and internal selectees alike — should be treated as appointed in 2002, since BP No. 9 dated 23.04.2002 (which reduced the direct recruits' training period from two years to three months) could not operate retrospectively to advance the probation start date of direct recruits to 2000–2001.

The Supreme Court allowed the appeals and set aside the Division Bench's judgment. Reading Regulations 10(9), 87 and 97 of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967 together, the Court held that training is expressly treated as "duty" under the Regulations; a person is "appointed to a class of service" from the first date he discharges duties or commences training or probation prescribed for the post; and seniority is determined by rank in the approved merit list, not by the date probation commences. The payment of a consolidated sum during training (as opposed to regular scale during probation) is irrelevant to this determination. BP No. 9 reducing the training period affected only emoluments and had no bearing on seniority. The Court further held that the proviso to Regulation 97 — fixing cyclic seniority between internal and direct recruits selected in the same calendar year — was inapplicable because the two cohorts were recruited in different calendar years (2000–2001 vs. 2002). Anything in the appointment letters or Board Proceedings running contrary to the plain language of Regulations 10(9) and 87 cannot override those Regulations. The Court referred to R.S. Ajara and Others v. The State of Gujarat, The State of H.P. v. J. L. Sharma, and Govt. of A.P. v. P. Bhaskar without departing from them.

Key principle

Under Regulations 10(9) and 87 of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967, training is part of "duty" and a direct recruit is "appointed to the service" from the first date of joining and commencement of training; accordingly, seniority of a direct recruit is counted from that initial date of joining — not from the date probation formally commences after training.

Holding

Allowed — the seniority of directly recruited Assistant Engineers is to be reckoned from the first date of their joining (including the training period), not from the date their probation commenced, as training constitutes "duty" under Regulations 10(9) and 87 of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967, and the Division Bench's contrary view was erroneous.

Statutes invoked

  • Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967 · Regulation 10(9)
  • Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967 · Regulation 87
  • Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Service Regulations, 1967 · Regulation 97

Practice areas

servicewrit
AI-generated summary, written by Claude Sonnet 4.6 from the court's published judgment. Always verify the original before relying on the summary in court. Generated on 21 May 2026.