The court’s order came on an appeal filed by an employee of the Border Roads Engineering Service, Dev Dutt, who has since retired.

After being promoted as Executive Engineer, Dutt was considered for the next promotion of Superintending Engineer. However, the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) held that he was not eligible, and instead his juniors were promoted to the rank.

Dutt first appealed to the high court, but his petition was dismissed.

However, the apex court noted: “In the present case, we are developing principles of natural justice by holding that fairness and transparency in public administration require that all entries (whether poor, fair, average, good or very good) in the ACR of a public servant must be communicated to him within a reasonable period.”

The court also held that “the non-communication of the ‘good’ entry (as in Dutt’s case) was arbitrary and hence illegal”.