Calcutta, April, 24: The high court today caught the government flouting its own rule on seniority while promoting a professor to the post of medical college principal.

A division bench of acting Chief Justice B. Bhattacharya and Justice K.K. Prasad rejected the government’s argument that it usually considers the competence of a professor — not seniority — during promotion, saying the medical service rules do not allow that.

The court ordered the government to give “notional promotion” to Panchanan Ghosh, a retired professor of Burdwan Medical College who was superseded by his junior, Udayan Ganguly, to the post of principal.

Ghosh will now get all benefits that he would have got had he retired as principal. The government will also have to pay him an 8 per cent interest for the delay.

“Ghosh was the senior-most professor of the college but the government made his junior colleague the principal on November 7, 2005,” his lawyer Kalyan Banerjee said.

When the state administrative tribunal upheld the decision, Ghosh moved the high court challenging it.