3 min readHyderabadMar 19, 2026 10:18 AM IST
Reversing a previous judgment which cited “public interest” to compel a senior professor of Ophthalmology to accept a promotion posting as principal of a newly established government medical college at Mahabubabad, the Telangana High Court said earlier this week that a government employee has a statutory right to forego a promotion under the state’s service rules.
The Division Bench of Chief Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh and Justice GM Mohiuddin delivered the judgment on March 17 in a writ appeal filed by Dr K Ravi Shekar Rao, a professor of Ophthalmology at Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad.
The case stems from a government order dated July 7, 2025, by which Dr Rao was promoted to the post of principal of the Government Medical College, Mahabubabad. However, he sought to decline the promotion, citing his teaching responsibilities at Gandhi Medical College and his 86-year-old mother’s health.
His petition challenging the promotion was dismissed by a single judge, who categorised the principal’s post as a “teaching post” and ruled that “public interest” required his presence at the newly established medical college to ensure compliance with the norms of the National Medical Commission (NMC).
The state’s counsel had argued that the right under Rule 11(b) cannot be construed as absolute and must yield to the larger public interest.
Employee can’t be compelled to accept promotion
The bench upheld the government employee’s statutory right and emphasised that Rule 11(b) of the Telangana State and Subordinate Service Rules, 1996, expressly allows an employee to forego a promotion by not joining within 15 days.
The only consequence as per the rule is the forfeiture of the promotion for that specific panel year and it does not prescribe any disciplinary action for non-joining. The provision “does not indicate that the employee can be compelled to accept the promotion notwithstanding such unwillingness.”
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“While administrative exigencies and considerations of public interest undoubtedly play an important role in matters of service administration, the exercise of such power must necessarily conform to the governing statutory framework,” the bench observed.
The primary reason for denying relief to the appellant was the characterisation of the post of principal as a “faculty/teaching member.” The bench clarified that under the Medical Institutions (Qualifications of Faculty) Regulations, 2025, the post of principal is an “administrative post” and is not counted toward the teacher-student ratio.
Observing that a principal’s post may be filled from the teaching cadre, the bench said that a principal is not treated as part of the teaching faculty “even for the purpose of determining the prescribed teacher–student ratio for recognition of a medical college.”
The bench further observed that the single judge “committed a palpable error in denying the benefit of Rule 11(b) of the 1996 Rules” to the appellant. It ruled that the invocation of “public interest” by the single judge is “misconceived, being an impermissible post-hoc rationalisation, without any indication in the promotion order itself.”
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Allowing the writ appeal, the bench set aside the government order as well as the previous judgment of the single judge.
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