APAR Graded Below Benchmark and Never Shown to You

Two very different problems: a grade you can still answer, and one you were never shown

An APAR complaint comes in one of two forms, and the remedy is different for each. In the first, the department has disclosed your APAR in the normal way and you do not like the grade. You are inside a short window and the task is to use it well. In the second, a low grade sat in your dossier for years without being shown to you, and it has surfaced only because a DPC or MACP screening committee used it. That is a breach of a rule the Supreme Court has repeated more than once, and the remedy is to undo the effect it had.

Most people who come to us belong to the second group. They did not know there was a problem until a junior was promoted, and they are understandably angry. The anger is justified, but it does not by itself win the case. What wins it is a clean paper trail showing that the grade was below the benchmark, that it was never communicated, and that it was the reason you were held unfit.

Just received your APAR disclosure? Use the 15 days well

When an APAR is disclosed, you have 15 days to send a representation against any entry or grade you dispute. Under DoPT's scheme the representation goes to a competent authority above the officers who wrote the report. That authority is expected to decide within about one month, after considering the views of the reporting and reviewing officers, and it can keep the grade, raise it, or expunge remarks. The decision then becomes part of your record.

Do not ignore a grade simply because it is not 'adverse'. A 'Good' is a respectable word in ordinary English, but if your next promotion is to Pay Level 12 or above, where the benchmark is 'Very Good', a 'Good' in one of the reckonable years can cost you the promotion. Our guide on the 15-day window after APAR disclosure walks through the representation in more detail.

If you need more time because you are on leave, on tour or unwell, write within the 15 days asking for an extension and saying why. Many departments allow it. What you should not do is let the period run out in silence and then complain two years later when the grade appears in a DPC.

How an APAR year normally runs

A grade you never saw: what the Supreme Court has said

In Dev Dutt v. Union of India, decided in May 2008, an engineer in a central organisation was denied promotion because one of his reports was graded 'Good' when the benchmark was 'Very Good'. The grade had never been shown to him. The Supreme Court held that every entry in the confidential report of a public servant, and not just adverse ones, must be communicated within a reasonable time, because an uncommunicated entry can wreck a career without the person ever getting a chance to answer it. Keeping it secret, the Court said, was arbitrary and violated Article 14.

The point was applied to promotion directly in Abhijit Ghosh Dastidar v. Union of India (2009), where the Court said a below-benchmark entry that was not communicated could not be used to deny promotion. A three-judge bench confirmed the Dev Dutt principle in Sukhdev Singh v. Union of India (2013). These three judgments are the foundation of almost every APAR case in the CAT today.

The government changed its own system in response. From the reporting year 2008-09, DoPT required the full APAR, grade included, to be disclosed to the officer with a chance to represent. For older ACRs that were below benchmark and never shown, DoPT's instructions of 2010 provide that they be communicated, with 15 days to represent, before a DPC relies on them. The 2024 DPC Guidelines repeat that every relevant APAR must have been disclosed, and any representation disposed of, before the papers go to the committee.

The rules and judgments you will cite

Adverse remarks, the integrity column and the pen-picture

A grade is only one part of the form. The reporting officer also writes a pen-picture in a few lines, and there is a column on integrity. A remark such as 'needs constant supervision' or 'integrity doubtful' can hurt more than a number, because DPCs and review committees read the narrative too. Any such remark has to be shown to you along with the grade, and you can ask for it to be expunged in the same representation.

The integrity column carries its own rule of caution. An officer who doubts a subordinate's integrity is expected to have some basis for it, and DoPT's instructions have long said that a doubt should be recorded only after the officer has made an effort to verify it, not on rumour. If your form says 'doubtful' and there was never a complaint, inquiry or warning in that year, say so plainly and ask on what material the remark rests. Remarks with nothing behind them are among the easier ones to have removed.

When 'Good' works like an adverse remark: promotion, MACP and FR 56(j)

For promotion to posts below Pay Level 12, the benchmark is 'Good', so a 'Good' does no harm. For Level 12 and above, it is 'Very Good', and a 'Good' becomes a below-benchmark grade. The same report can be harmless for one person and damaging for another, depending on the post each is aiming for. That is exactly why the Supreme Court refused to let departments hide behind the line that only 'adverse' entries need to be shown.

MACP works on a benchmark too, and screening committees read the APARs in much the way a DPC does. A grade you never saw can therefore hold up your 10, 20 or 30 year upgradation as well as a regular promotion. If that is your situation, see our page on MACP upgradation disputes and the guide on MACP refused for APAR grading.

Low grades also feed into the review that decides premature retirement in public interest under FR 56(j). Review committees look at the whole record, and a run of mediocre APARs can be cited as one of the reasons. If you are past 50 or 55 and have unanswered grades, it is worth clearing them while you can. How those reviews work is explained under retirement under FR 56(j).

Grounds that persuade a competent authority to raise a grade

• The reporting officer did not supervise you long enough. DoPT's instructions expect a reporting officer to have watched your work for at least three months in the year. A report written by someone who joined in January for a year ending in March is vulnerable.
• The grade and the narrative do not match. If every column praises your work and the pen-picture calls you dependable and prompt, an overall 'Average' needs explaining. Point to the contradiction line by line.
• The reviewing officer lowered the grade without reasons. The form itself asks the reviewing officer to give reasons when disagreeing. A silent downgrade is a weak downgrade.
• Your self-appraisal was ignored. If you listed targets met, cases disposed of or projects completed, and the report says nothing about them, attach the proof.
• The report was written out of time. APARs are meant to be closed by the end of December after the reporting year. A report written long after, often after the officer had retired or left, deserves scrutiny.
• A documented clash with the reporting officer. If you had complained about this officer, or he had been subject to an inquiry on your complaint, say so with dates. Bias has to be shown by facts, not feelings.

Writing a representation that someone will actually read

Keep it to two or three pages. Open with the reporting year, the grade given and the benchmark for your next promotion, so the reader knows at once why it matters. Then take the grounds one by one, each with a document behind it: your self-appraisal, a commendation, a disposal figure, a tour record, an office order showing when the reporting officer joined. Close with what you want: the grade raised to the benchmark, or the remarks expunged.

Advocate B.K. Singh's advice to clients drafting these is to write for a tired joint secretary who has thirty such files on the desk. Avoid attacking the reporting officer's character. Show instead that the grade cannot be squared with the record. A representation that reads like a complaint against a person invites a defensive reply; one that reads like an audit of the record invites a correction.

The time to build this record is during the year, not after. Our guide on writing the self-appraisal in your APAR lists what to put in so that you have material to rely on later.

From a hidden grade to a review DPC: the order of steps

1. Get your full APAR record

   Apply under RTI, or simply request your establishment section, for copies of all your APARs for the years a DPC or screening committee would read, with any disclosure letters. Ask also for the minutes recording your grading. Our guide on RTI for DPC minutes and APARs shows what to request.

2. Mark the problem years

   Against each year, write the grade, the benchmark for your promotion or MACP, and whether the APAR was ever communicated to you. Any year that is both below benchmark and uncommunicated is your target.

3. Ask for formal disclosure

   Write to the authority that maintains your APARs asking that the uncommunicated report be disclosed to you now under DoPT's instructions, so that you can represent. Keep the receipt.

4. Represent within 15 days of disclosure

   When it comes, send your reasoned representation within 15 days, with documents. If the department refuses to disclose at all, that refusal is itself something the tribunal can examine.

5. Seek a review DPC

   If the grade is raised to the benchmark or the remarks are expunged, ask the appointing authority for a review DPC for the year you were overlooked. The guidelines list a later upgrading as a ground. See our page on asking for a review DPC.

6. Approach the CAT if needed

   If the representation is rejected by an unreasoned order, or sits undecided for six months, or the review DPC is refused, file an Original Application. Keep the one-year limit in mind; if you are already outside it, an application to condone delay must go with the OA, as explained on our page on condoning delay under Section 21.

Documents to keep ready

• All APARs for the reckonable years, and one or two earlier years
• Disclosure letters, emails or SPARROW notifications showing when each APAR was shown to you, or proof that it was not
• Your self-appraisal for the disputed year, and evidence of the achievements you listed
• Office orders showing when the reporting and reviewing officers joined and left
• Any commendation, appreciation letter or award from the same year
• Your representation, its receipt and the competent authority's decision
• The DPC or MACP screening minutes and the promotion order that left you out
• The Recruitment Rules showing the benchmark for the post

Time and expense, stage by stage

Which bench hears it, and who cannot go to the CAT

A central government employee files the Original Application at the CAT bench for the place of posting, or where the decision was taken or felt. A retired employee who was denied promotion before retirement can usually file where he now lives. Benches in Delhi, Lucknow, Kolkata and elsewhere hear APAR cases routinely, and the law applied is the same everywhere because it comes from the Supreme Court.

APAR disputes of CAPF personnel, PSU staff and bank officers do not go to the CAT; they generally go by writ to the High Court, while members of the Army, Navy and Air Force have the Armed Forces Tribunal. Teachers in Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas do come before the CAT, since both bodies have been notified under Section 14(2). Our page on the right forum for CAPF and armed forces personnel explains the alternatives.

Railway, postal, defence civilian and scientific staff

Railway employees are governed by Railway Board instructions on APARs that broadly follow the DoPT pattern of disclosure and representation, and the same Supreme Court judgments apply to them. In railway selections, a below-benchmark record of service can affect the assessment marks, so the APAR question often comes up inside a challenge to a selection panel.

Postal staff, including inspectors and supervisors, have APARs maintained at divisional or circle level; transfers between divisions are a common cause of missing or unseen reports. Defence civilians in MES, ordnance establishments and depots frequently find that a report written at one unit was never forwarded or disclosed after they moved. Where a report was never written, the DPC follows a set procedure, explained in our guide on missing APARs and the DPC.

Scientists in CSIR, DRDO, ICAR and similar bodies are assessed under their own schemes, often with an assessment committee and interview. APARs still count, and the disclosure principle still applies, but the remedy is usually a fresh assessment rather than a review DPC.

What the tribunal usually orders in APAR cases

Where the CAT finds that a below-benchmark grade was never communicated and was used against you, the common direction is one of two: either the department must communicate it now, consider your representation and then hold a review DPC, or the DPC must ignore that year and assess you on the other reports. Which route it takes depends on how old the report is and whether the officers who wrote it are still available.

Where a representation was rejected by a one-line order, the tribunal may set the rejection aside and ask the competent authority to decide again with reasons. It rarely raises the grade itself. As Advocate B.K. Singh puts it to clients, the tribunal is there to make sure your record is assessed fairly, not to write your APAR for you. Once the grade is corrected, the next steps (review DPC, notional promotion, pay fixation) are covered on our page about being left out by the DPC while juniors were promoted.

Already retired, or the officer who wrote it has moved on

Retirement does not end the claim. If you were overlooked for promotion while in service because of an uncommunicated grade, you can still seek a review DPC and notional promotion from the date your junior was promoted. The benefit then flows into your pay fixation on paper, your last pay and your pension. The one-year limit still applies, counted from the order or rejection that hurt you, so a retiree who sits on the matter for years will face questions about delay.

It is common for the reporting or reviewing officer to have retired, been transferred or even died by the time the dispute surfaces. That does not block your representation. The competent authority can decide it on the record, and where the authors cannot be consulted, tribunals have sometimes directed that the disputed year be left out and the DPC assess the officer on the remaining reports. What matters is that you raise it as soon as you learn of the grade.

Common mistakes with APARs

• Waiting until the DPC. A disclosed grade that you did not answer within 15 days is very hard to reopen later. The Dev Dutt line of cases protects people who were never shown the grade, not people who were.
• Representing only on emotion. 'I have always worked hard' persuades no one. Documents do.
• Ignoring a missing APAR. A year with no report is not neutral. Ask for a 'No Report Certificate' to be placed on record, so the DPC does not read something unsuitable in its place.
• Letting the competent authority's silence drift. If no decision comes within a month or two, send one reminder and diarise the six-month mark under Section 20.
• Asking the tribunal to grade you. Frame the relief as fresh consideration or a review DPC. Prayers asking the CAT to declare you 'Very Good' tend to be refused.

If you are reading this with a disclosure letter in your hand

Count the days first. If you are still within 15 days, write the representation this week, attach your evidence and get a dated receipt. If the window is gone, or the grade was never shown to you at all, collect the full APAR record and the DPC or MACP minutes before deciding anything else.

If you would like your APARs and the representation looked at before you send it, or want to know how recent DoPT circulars affect your case, speak to Advocate B.K. Singh.