Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Mrs. Sunita Sharma vs Govt. Of Nct Of Delhi on 26 August, 2011
Central Administrative Tribunal Principal Bench OA No.3000/2011 New Delhi, this the 26th day of August, 2011 Honble Mrs. Meera Chhibber, Member (J) Honble Dr. Ramesh Chandra Panda, Member (A) Mrs. Sunita Sharma W/o Shri Manoj Sharma D/o Shri B. S. Sharma R/o 1/3202, Main Mandoli Road, Ram Nagar, Shahdara, Delhi 110 032. . Applicant. (By Advocate : Shri D. R. Gupta) Versus 1. Govt. of NCT of Delhi Through Chief Secretary I. P. Estate, New Delhi. 2. Directorate of Education Govt. of NCT of Delhi Old Sectt., Delhi. 3. Chairman Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Boards, FC-18, Institutional Area, Karkardooma, Delhi. . Respondents. : O R D E R : Honble Dr. Ramesh Chandra Panda, Member (A) :
This is the second round of litigation. Mrs. Sunita Sharma, the applicant herein, is agitating before the Tribunal on the same set of prayers as has been done in the past. Earlier in OA No.2614/2010, this Tribunal passed the following order on 21.12.2010:-
This OA shall stand disposed of, on consensual basis, with following directions:
(i) The competent authority shall intimate the exact reasons on account whereof the applicant was not found eligible for consideration for the post under reference.
(ii) The applicant may, in her own discretion, file a plea before the competent authority for a resort to the relaxation clause.
2. If a plea for invoking the relaxation clause is made, it would be open to the competent authority to take whatever decision is deemed appropriate, completely unfazed by the consensual disposal of this OA. This exercise (qua item-(i)), however, shall be concluded within one month from the date of receipt of a copy of this order. The plea for relaxation too shall be disposed of within one month of the receipt thereof.
3. Disposed of accordingly.
2. Pursuant to the above order, the applicant submitted her representation dated 14.02.2011 (Annexure-A2) to the respondents. The respondents have considered the applicants case as per the Recruitment Rules and have decided that the applicants grounds are not sufficient reasons to grant any relaxation and, therefore, the relaxation could not be invoked for considering her plea. Accordingly, the order was passed in March, 2011 (Page-9). On receipt of the said order, she submitted one more representation dated 19.04.2011 (Pages 14-15) to the second respondent citing the cases of Ms. Seema and Ms. Barkha and she pleaded to be treated with the same methodology as done in their cases. Feeling aggrieved by the said order of the respondents, the applicant is before this Tribunal in the fresh OA under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 with the prayer to direct the respondents to consider her representation claiming that she has the requisite qualification and experience prescribed for the aforesaid post of Librarian which was not considered by the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board. It is also claimed that she has been discriminated in the matter considering the facts of a similar cases of Ms. Barkha and Ms. Seema and has requested to direct the respondents to consider her case and adopt the same methodology as she is similarly situated compared to the other two candidates.
3. We heard Shri D. R. Gupta, learned Counsel for the applicant at the admission stage.
4. It was brought to our notice by the learned counsel that the respondents notified the applications for filling up vacancies for 147 posts of Librarian in Directorate of Education. Applicant appeared in the written examination for the said post conducted on 18.01.2009 and the result was published from which the applicant could not find her name amongst the 42 provisionally selected candidates including 23 selected under General category for the said post, despite her securing 106 marks out of 200 and being listed at 11th position in the overall merit list of 753 candidates. It is further contended that there is similarity of the applicants case with those of Ms. Barkha and Ms. Seema, whose cases were reconsidered by the respondents on the basis of their representations and they have been given the offer of appointment for the said post.
5. At the admission stage, we consider it appropriate to see whether the applicant has made out a prima facie case to issue any notice to the respondents. It is noted that while passing the order in the first round of litigation, the parties agreed to two elements on consensual basis, namely (i) the competent authority would intimate the reasons on account of which the applicant was found ineligible and (ii) the applicant would submit her explanation in case she would desire to resort to the relaxation clause. Consequent to the directions issued by this Tribunal on 21.12.2010, the applicant has submitted a detailed representation dated 14.02.2011 and followed up with another representation dated 19.04.2011, though the respondents have already replied to her in their order dated 21.03.2011, which reads as follows:-
ORDER Whereas Honble Central Administrative Tribunal (Principal Bench) in court case OA 2164/2010 case title Sunita Sharma V/s GNCT of Delhi vide its order dated 21.12.2010 has passed the following orders:-
(i) To intimate exact reasons on account whereof the applicant was not found eligible for consideration for the post under reference.
(ii) The applicant may, in her own discretion, file a plea before the competent authority for a resort to the relaxation clause.
In case plea for invoking the relaxation clause is made, it would be open to the competent authority to take whatever decision is deemed appropriate, completely unfazed by the consensual disposal of the OA. The exercise (qua item-(i) has to be concluded within one month from the date of receipt of copy of this order. The plea for relaxation too shall be disposed of within one month of the receipt thereof.
Whereas applicant with reference to the order has submitted representation dated 12.02.2011 requesting for invoking relaxation clause for deeming her eligible to the post, on ground that sufficient candidates were not available for selection and her certificate in computing of six months duration also contains part of Applications.
Whereas, during initial result process of the post code, applicants candidature for the post of Librarian in the Directorate of Education under post code 17/07 was not considered eligible, as she was not found fulfilling the eligibility criteria either with regard experience of two years in a Library/Computerization of a Library or one year certificate course in Computer application from a recognized institute or equivalent.
Whereas, as per RRs in Note 1, it is stipulated that qualifications are relaxable at the discretion of the S.S.C. in case of candidates otherwise well qualified. This clause has not been applied while processing the initial result, as sufficient candidates fulfilling the eligibility norms, were already available for selection under the post code.
Whereas applicant was having qualification of BLIS, MLIS but she was lacking in qualification about experience or one year certificate in Computer Application course. She has passed certificate in computing of six months duration which cannot be equated to the qualification of certificate in computer applications of one year duration. Her experience as Library Trainee is only of 6 months period w.e.f. 01.05.06 to 31.10.06.
Whereas, the Board in its counter affidavit in OA vide Para 8, had already stated that selection under the reference post code has been processed at par as per eligibility prescribed by the RRs without invoking the relaxation clause and applicants claim for relaxation in the eligibility conditions cannot be considered in isolation, specially when there are sufficient candidates available in merit for selection.
In compliance of the order of the Ld. CAT, the Competent authority after due consideration of the representations/plea, orders to intimate the applicant grounds of rejection of her candidature for the post and also grounds for not considering her plea for invoking the relaxation clause, as above.
Ms. Sunita Sharma is informed accordingly.
This issues with the approval of the Competent Authority, DSSSB.
6. As per the above, it is seen that the relevant Recruitment Rules stipulate the qualification and experience to become eligible for the post of Librarian. The applicant passed a certificate course in computing of 6 months duration which the respondents found not equal to the qualification of certificate in computer application of one year duration. It has also been stated that the relaxation clause could not be invoked as adequate number of candidates were available at par as per the eligibility criteria prescribed in the Recruitment Rules.
7. One more ground taken by the applicant is that she is similarly circumstanced as Ms. Seema and Ms. Barkha. The result notice dated 21.01.2011 (Page 26 of the paper book) issued by DSSSB reveals that the issue in those two cases was that of period of requisite experience. In case of Ms. Barkha, this Tribunal considered the controversy in OA No.1388/2010 and while allowing the OA on 19.10.2010 directed the respondents to consider her experience from August, 2005 to March, 2007 in M/s AIM Consultant Pvt. Limited towards the requisite experience. Accordingly, DSSSB provisionally selected. Insofar as Ms. Seemas case is concerned, her experience with National Medical Library was counted towards requisite experience and she was provisionally selected. The applicants case is not similar to the above two candidates. The applicant admittedly did not have educational qualification in one year certificate in Computer Application course. Six months course cannot be equated with one year course. Hence, we find that the applicant is not similarly circumstanced as in case of Ms. Barkha and Ms. Seema. She fails to convince us in this ground also.
8. Considering the statutory recruitment rule position and the facts of the case in which the applicant has been found to be ineligible for the post of Librarian, we find there is no prima facie case, on which any notice can be issued to the respondents to carry forward the OA for final adjudication. Thus, we find that the OA is devoid of merits. Accordingly, the Original Application is dismissed in limine.
(Dr. Ramesh Chandra Panda) (Mrs. Meera Chhibber) Member (A) Member (J) /pj/