Balram Singh v The Public Service Commission

Where Public Service Commission Regulations, regulation 26 applies, seniority is a general rule for an acting appointment, not an absolute command. A commission may depart from it by using alternative criteria for a particular appointment or category, provided the criteria are lawful and rational. It need not first assess the most senior eligible officer individually where it has lawfully adopted such criteria. The distinction is between a lawful alternative policy and the unlawful exclusion of an eligible senior officer from consideration on an erroneous eligibility basis. The Board also cautioned that declaratory relief should not ordinarily be granted in the abstract or without practical purpose, and that success does not automatically secure a bare declaration or costs.

The appellant, an officer in the Ministry of Works and Transport, claimed that junior officers had been appointed to act as Motor Vehicle Inspector I before him, contrary to the seniority principle in regulation 26 of the Public Service Commission Regulations. He sought declaratory and related relief, although he was appointed to the acting post during the proceedings.

Pemberton J gave judgment for the respondent with costs on 17 December 2008. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal on 7 October 2011. The appeal concerned whether regulation 26 applied, whether selecting officers by the date of their qualifications breached it, and whether the evidence established that junior officers had been preferred. The Board decided the second issue in the respondent’s favour and did not determine the first or third issues.

Disposition

The Board, in a judgment delivered by Lord Carnwath, dismissed the appeal. The selection method used by the Public Service Commission was a lawful and rational departure from the general seniority rule in regulation 26.

1. Scope of regulation 26. The Board considered that the seniority principle in the Public Service Commission Regulations was a general rule rather than an absolute requirement. The Commission had a wide discretion to depart from it for relevant reasons, including by adopting alternative criteria for a particular appointment or category of appointments. The Board did not finally decide whether regulation 26 applied to the appointment in question, although it saw some force in the submission that the provision was concerned with promotion in the true sense.
2. Effect of Ramoutar v Commisioner of Prisons [2012] UKPC 29. In that case, the most senior candidate had been excluded from consideration altogether because he was treated as ineligible on an erroneous basis. The Board explained that the passages in Ramoutar requiring consideration of the seniority rule and of the most senior eligible officer could not be read as preventing the Commission from adopting lawful alternative criteria. The appellant’s reliance on those passages therefore read too much into them.
3. Application. Unlike the position in Ramoutar, the appellant’s case had been considered by reference to criteria based on the date on which officers obtained the necessary qualifications. It was conceded that those criteria were lawful and rational. On that basis, the selection method did not breach regulation 26. The Board consequently found it unnecessary to determine whether the appellant had in fact been bypassed by junior officers.
4. Declarations and costs. The Board cautioned that it does not ordinarily grant declarations of law in the abstract or without practical purpose. Even a successful appellant should not assume entitlement to a bare declaration or to costs without showing such a purpose. Subject to any unknown special circumstances, the respondent was awarded its costs following dismissal of the appeal.

1. Privy Council: Appeal dismissed on 29 July 2014.
2. Court of Appeal of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago: Appeal dismissed on 7 October 2011. Final leave to appeal to the Privy Council was given on 27 April 2012.
3. Pemberton J: Judgment for the respondent with costs on 17 December 2008.