Annual Confidential Report--Every ACR Entry Affecting Promotional Prospects Must Be Communicated to Employee Regardless of Nomenclature
Every entry in the Annual Confidential Report of a public servant must be communicated to the employee if it adversely affects promotional prospects, regardless of its nomenclature. The determinative factor is not whether an entry is formally labelled "adverse" but whether it renders the employee ineligible for promotion or diminishes promotional chances. This obligation, as settled in Dev Dutt v. Union of India, applies retrospectively. Destruction of service records during pendency of litigation attracts adverse inference, and award of fractional marks where the applicable promotion policy makes no such provision is impermissible.
