The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that an employee’s claim to promotion cannot be defeated by a subsequent extension of service when the competent authority had already decided to promote the employee during regular service.Allowing a petition by a former assistant librarian with Patiala Municipal Corporation, Justice Namit Kumar directed the consideration of the petitioner’s claim for promotion to the librarian’s post with effect from January 8, 2020, with consequential benefits. The court said the restriction on promotion during extended service could not be invoked to defeat a claim that had already crystallised before retirement.“Merely, because the petitioner was on extension in service with effect from February 1, 2020, and the letter dated March 5, 2020, was issued subsequently, would not frustrate the claim of the petitioner for promotion to the post of librarian, which had already crystalised on January 8, 2020,” the court observed.The dispute arose after the Corporation’s General House, through resolution dated January 8, 2020, approved promotion from assistant librarian to librarian. Justice Kumar’s Bench was told that she was promoted as assistant librarian on September 11, 2014, and completed five years in the post in September 2019. The Corporation’s agenda recorded that she fulfilled the promotion conditions and was found fit for the higher post.The Corporation sought the government’s guidance because its Establishment Branch did not have the relevant promotion rules. The Local Government Department, in its communication dated March 5, 2020, stated that the corporation was competent to decide service matters of non-provincial employees, subject to applicable rules and instructions and the condition that the employee should not be on extension of service. The communication read: “The power to appoint the non-provincial employees and to decide about their other service matters lies with Municipal Corporation which is the competent authority.”Justice Kumar’s Bench was told that the employee attained the age of superannuation on January 31, 2020, and received an extension of service from February 1, 2020. After the government withdrew the extension policy, her extension ended on September 30, 2020. Despite subsequent government communications reiterating that the promotion claim could be considered from the date of the House resolution, the Corporation rejected her claim on April 27, 2022, citing the restriction on promotion during extended service.Rejecting the Corporation’s stand, Justice Kumar held that decision was taken on January 8, 2020, when she was still in regular service. The court said the restriction under the October 30, 2015, notification could not defeat her claim in these circumstances.Justice Kumar observed: “The embargo imposed by the notification dated October 30, 2015, against promotion during the extended period of service cannot be invoked to defeat the claim of the petitioner.”The court directed the respondents to consider her claim for notional promotion as librarian with effect from January 8, 2020, and grant her pensionary and consequential benefits. The benefits were required to be calculated and released within three months of receipt of a certified copy of the order.