CHENNAI: The Annual Confidential Reports (ACRs) of officers cannot be the basis for their further promotions, unless they are duly communicated to them for remarks or explanation, the Madras High Court has ruled.A division bench, comprising justices Elipe Dharma Rao and M Venugopal, gave the ruling while passing orders on a writ petition from the Centre. The Bench said that now it was a settled principle of law that below the benchmark ACRs, which were not communicated to an employee, should not be taken into consideration.Originally, senior IAS officer R Vijayakumar, belonging to 1978 batch of IAS officer of TN cadre, filed an application for the inclusion of his name in the empanel for additional secretary posting in the Government of India service on par with that of his batchmates. Consequently, he wanted his name to be empanelled for secretary-level post, as well. The CAT ruled in his favour. Qu- estioning this, Centre filed the present writ petition.Additional Solicitor General M Ravindran submitted that the empanelment in the Central Government service was not a matter of routine promotion, as strict selection criteria such as merit, competency, leadership and flair for participating in policy formulation and implementation, were considered. Vijayakumar’s ACRs were found to be below the benchmark and hence he was not empanelled, he added.Vijayakumar said that the ACRs were not communicated to him at all. And the bench observed that the decision was illegal as the ACRs were not communicated to Vijayakumar. The same also amounted to arbitrariness in the selection process, which was a valid ground for judicial review.
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