A Division Bench of the Delhi High Court, comprising Justice C. Hari Shankar and Justice Vinod Kumar, has expressed serious doubts about the power of any court other than the Supreme Court to bar the citation of its own judgments. In Union of India v. Om Prakash (W.P.(C) 5071/2025), decided on 15 October 2026, the Bench observed: “Though it is often done, we have serious doubts as to whether any Court, other than the Supreme Court, is empowered to enter a caveat, having delivered a judicial decision, that the decision would not be cited as a precedent in any other case.” The remark arose in a service dispute over retrospective in situ promotion under the Flexible Complementing Scheme. Background: A Scientist’s Claim to Ante-Dated PromotionThe respondent, Om Prakash, was a Scientist B in the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEFCC). He received in situ promotion as Scientist C under the Flexible Complementing Scheme (FCS) with effect from 2 July 2007 and retired on 30 June 2013.He approached the Central Administrative Tribunal, seeking promotion as Scientist C from 1 January 2006 and as Scientist D from 1 January 2010. He relied on the Tribunal’s earlier ruling in Nakul Dev v. Union of India, which the High Court had upheld in writ proceedings.The Tribunal allowed his application on 29 January 2024. It relied on an MOEFCC Office Memorandum of 13 August 2013 that listed him among scientists entitled to ante-dating. It noted that the Department of Personnel and Training (DOPT) had, in November 2014, restrained implementation without approval of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, but held that his acknowledged right could not be defeated because that approval was pending. It directed ante-dating of the Scientist C promotion, orders on the Scientist D promotion and consequential benefits, including arrears of pay.The MOEFCC and DOPT challenged this before the High Court. They relied on rules providing that there shall be no retrospective promotion, and on DOPT memoranda of 1998 and 2002. They argued that the FCS is a rigorous merit-assessment scheme that the Tribunal had converted into an automatic, time-bound promotion mechanism.Can High Courts and Tribunals Restrict Citation of Their Judgments?The respondent’s case rested on Nakul Dev. In that case, the Tribunal had said its special remedy applied to the applicants alone and could not be treated as a judicial precedent for any other case. The Union argued that this caveat, upheld by the High Court, prevented the respondent from drawing on that decision. The Bench therefore had to decide what such a caveat is worth.It acknowledged that courts routinely enter such caveats, but expressed “serious doubts” about whether any court below the Supreme Court has the power to do so. This is an expression of doubt, not a conclusive ruling, and it should be read that way. The reasoning behind it, however, is developed firmly.The Bench separated two things that are often run together. The first is a court stating that it is deciding a case on its peculiar facts. As the Bench put it: “It is altogether another thing to state that a decision is being rendered in the peculiar facts of the case before the Court.” Such a statement “merely clarifies that, in the peculiar facts before it, it is rendering its decision and that, had the facts been otherwise, the decision might also have been different.”Courts do at times meet facts for which there is no reliable precedent, or must mould remedies so that justice is done. But the Bench added: “That does not empower any Court to grant a remedy which the law does not permit.” A facts-specific caveat, it said, “is only intended to obviate any confusion, and elucidate the factors which motivated the Court to hold as it did. Such an observation cannot operate as a proscription, even impliedly, against the decision being cited as a precedent in any other case.”The second is a declaration that a decision cannot be cited as precedent at all. A statement that a case turns on its peculiar facts is an explanation of the decision’s basis, and it leaves the judgment open to citation. An express bar on citation is a different step, and the Bench doubted that courts other than the Supreme Court can take it.Article 141 and the Supreme Court’s PositionThe Bench located the Supreme Court’s special position in Article 141 of the Constitution of India, under which the law declared by the Supreme Court binds all courts. To show how the Supreme Court itself uses this power, it turned to NBCC (India) Ltd v. State of West Bengal [(2025) 3 SCC 440)].The High Court reproduced a passage in which the Supreme Court describes its dual role: “as an institution, our Supreme Court performs the twin functions of decision-making and precedent-making.” A substantial part of its jurisdiction under Article 136 consists of regular appellate disposition, and “every judgment or order made by this Court in disposing of these appeals is not intended to be a binding precedent under Article 141.”The Supreme Court also acknowledged the difficulty this creates for lower courts, which face “difficulties... in determining whether the judgment is in the process of decision-making or precedent-making, particularly when we have also declared that even an obiter of this Court must be treated as a binding precedent for the High Courts and the courts below.” Its response was to be explicit: “It is therefore necessary to be cautious in our dispensation and state whether a particular decision is to resolve the dispute between the parties and provide finality or whether the judgment is intended to and in fact declares the law under Article 141.”Building on this, the Delhi High Court held: “Thus, the distinction between decisions which operate merely as decisions and not as precedents, and those which operate as precedents, is unique to the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.” It continued: “This caveat is, therefore, unique to the Supreme Court, as its decisions are constitutionally binding by virtue of Article 141 of the Constitution of India.”The consequence for lower courts follows from that position. Even where facts are similar, “it would not be possible to follow the decision as a binding precedent if, in that decision itself, the Supreme Court has clarified to the contrary. The application of Article 141 would, therefore, stand excepted.”The Bench also gave an institutional reason for restraint: “If Courts, lower in the judicial hierarchy from the Supreme Court, also arrogate, to themselves, the authority to clarify that decisions rendered by them would not be treated as binding precedents, it could result in a situation in which litigants, who may be similarly circumstanced on facts, would receive different treatments from the Court. Ex facie, this would be impermissible.”Earlier Decisions Considered: Nakul Dev and S.K. MurtiThe Bench noted that submissions identical to the Union’s had been advanced and rejected in Nakul Dev, and that its facts “practically mirror” the present case.In Nakul Dev, two officers who had retired sought in situ promotion as Joint Director under the FCS. As an interview was no longer possible, the Tribunal directed a review Assessment Board to consider their ACRs alone. It acknowledged this was a deviation from the FCS guidelines, and so confined the remedy to the applicants. The High Court upheld the judgment and noted that the Tribunal had taken care to direct that it not be treated as a judicial precedent.The second authority was Union of India v. S.K. Murti. A scientist’s promotion had been delayed because the Departmental Review Committee did not meet on time. The High Court directed that his benefit be reckoned from the date of eligibility, observing that “nobody can take advantage of his own wrong.” The Supreme Court upheld that ruling, holding the High Court’s reasons “legally correct.”The Bench concluded that, on facts and in law, the controversy was covered by both decisions. The Union had tried to distinguish S.K. Murti on the ground that the scientists there had already been assessed. The Bench accepted that this might hold for the Scientist D claim, but found it “clearly not correct” for the Scientist C claim, as the respondent had been considered and promoted to that grade from 2 July 2007.Treatment of the Nakul Dev CaveatApplying its reasoning, the Bench saw no reason why the respondent should be treated differently from the respondents in Nakul Dev.It also made a separate point about the Tribunal: “a judgment of the Tribunal, as an authority lower in the judicial hierarchy, can never operate as a precedent for this Court.” At best, it can carry precedential value for Single Benches of the Tribunal or Benches of co-equal jurisdiction. The Tribunal’s observation that its decision would not be cited therefore had “neither binding, or even precedential, significance” for the High Court, which, in upholding the judgment, “has merely endorsed the judgment.”The Bench was explicit about why it followed Nakul Dev: “we do so not because we are treating the decision of the Tribunal as a precedent, but because we do not see any reason why the respondent should not be accorded the same treatment as Nakul Dev and M.L. Soni, the applicants before the Tribunal.”Findings on the Promotion DisputeThe Court’s decision on the promotions is distinct from its remarks on precedent, and the two treatments differ.On Scientist C, the respondent had been considered and promoted from 2 July 2007. The Tribunal’s direction to ante-date to 1 January 2006 was held “entirely covered by the judgment of the Supreme Court in S.K. Murti and of this Court in Nakul Dev.” The Bench concluded: “No exception can, therefore, be taken to the said direction.”On Scientist D, S.K. Murti did not apply, as the respondent “was never assessed in that regard.” The Bench held that “the requirement of assessment cannot be dispensed with, as it is a mandate of the FCS itself.” It read the Tribunal’s direction meaningfully, holding that the Tribunal could not be understood as having directed “ipso facto or automatic promotion” without “any exercise of assessment under the FCS.”The Court nonetheless refused to let retirement defeat the claim. It accepted that the respondent could no longer be interviewed, but held it “wholly unjust, inequitable and unfair” to deny the benefit when the delay was “wholly attributable to the MOEFCC.” It noted that he had been interviewed and found suitable for Scientist C “a mere 4 years earlier.”Click Here to Read the Official JudgmentFinal DirectionsThe Court upheld the Tribunal’s judgment, “subject to the caveat that the in situ promotion of the respondent as Scientist D with effect from 1 January 2010 would be subject to his being found suitable for such promotion on the basis of the parameters envisaged for in situ promotion under the FCS in the DOPT OM dated 9 November 1998, except for holding of an interview.” The writ petition was disposed of in those terms, with no order as to costs.The ante-dated Scientist C promotion therefore stands, while the Scientist D promotion depends on a suitability assessment without an interview. The Bench’s comments on citation explain why the Nakul Dev caveat did not stand in the respondent’s way, and they set out its doubts about the power of courts other than the Supreme Court to bar citation of their own judgments.Important LinkLaw Library: Notes and Study Material for LLB, LLM, Judiciary, and Entrance Exams