The Punjab and Haryana high court has overturned the decision of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in a seniority dispute between Dr Arun K Jain and Dr Surinder Singh Pandav, both professors in the ophthalmology department of Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
Dr Pandav was placed ahead of Dr Jain in the seniority list notified by the institute in September 2018, which was challenged by the latter before CAT.
The tribunal had ruled in favour of Dr Jain, following which the matter had reached the high court in June 2020.
HC in its order said that seniority list till September 2018 was the provisional/tentative seniority and did not create any vested right in favour of Dr Jain. “It was open to PGIMER to have corrected the mistake in assigning the right seniority to Dr Pandav in the earlier provisional seniority lists when it issued the list dated September 25, 2018,” the bench said.