Uttarakhand High Court
Union Of India And Others vs Kailash Prasad And Another on 12 January, 2017
Author: Sudhanshu Dhulia
Bench: Rajiv Sharma, Sudhanshu Dhulia
Reserved Judgment
Reserved on : 20.12.2016
Delivered on : 12.01.2017
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL
Writ Petition (S/B) No. 382 of 2015
Union of India and others ....Petitioners
Versus
Kailash Prasad (Per No. 990124) and another ...Respondents
Present: Mr. Sanjay Bhatt, Central Government Standing Counsel for the
petitioners.
Mr. Manoj Tiwari, Senior Advocate assisted by Ms. Akansha
Gaur, Advocate for respondent no. 1.
Coram : Hon'ble Rajiv Sharma, J.
Hon'ble Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.
Hon'ble Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.
In this writ petition filed by the Union of India, the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad (Circuit Bench at Nainital) dated 18.06.2015 is under challenge, whereby the Original Application No. 16 of 2015 filed by the respondent under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunal Act has been allowed and directions have been given to the concerned authorities to re-consider the candidature of the applicant (present respondent no. 1) for promotion.
2. Brief facts of the case are that respondent no. 1, who was posted at Ordnance Parachute Factory, Kanpur between 2008 to 2011 and was awarded a below bench mark grading and adverse remarks for the assessment year 2010-11 in his service book. He consequently preferred a representation dated 16.12.2011 against the adverse remarks and grading before the Director General, Ordnance Factory at Kolkata. The said representation was rejected by the Director General vide order dated 28.03.2012. Being aggrieved by the order of the Director General, respondent no. 1 filed an appeal dated 27.08.2012 and a supplementary appeal dated 26.08.2013 before His Excellency the President of India, who is the appellate authority. The said appeal was allowed and the adverse remarks were expunged and his overall grading was upgraded from 5.0 to 6.0 i.e. from 'good' to 'very good' - a decision which was also conveyed to Ordnance Factory Board. Subsequently a departmental promotion committee (from hereinafter referred to as "DPC") was constituted, which held its meeting on 17.06.2014 for promotion from Junior Administrative Grade (in short, "JAG") to Senior Administrative Grade (in short, "SAG"). The details of respondent no. 1 for the last five years are as follows:-
Sl. No. Year Overall As per Numeric part (IV o grading the APAR, grading with 6 and short of 8 will be rated as 'very good' 1 2008-09 Very Very Good Good 2 2009-10 7.0 Very Good 3 2010-11 6.0 Very Good 4 20111-12 7.5 Very Good 5 2012-13 7.8 Very Good
3. The case of respondent no. 1 was that in spite of his 'very good' gradings and that he met the benchmark for consideration for promotion to the next higher post, his candidature was not considered. He, therefore, had earlier filed an Original Application before the Central Administrative Tribunal being OA No. 331/00047 of 2014, which was decided vide order dated 10.11.2014 with the direction to the concerned authorities to decide the representation of the applicant (respondent no. 1, herein).
The representation was rejected on 21.01.2015 by the concerned authorities at Ordnance Factory, Kolkatta. Being aggrieved by the said order, respondent no. 1 filed an Original Appeal No. 16 of 2015 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad which was taken up at its circuit Bench at Nainital and was decided and allowed by an order and judgment dated 18.06.2015, which is presently challenged by the Union of India.
4. Order dated 18.06.2015 has been perused.
5. The learned Tribunal in its order dated 18.06.2015 has clearly stated that in terms of the guidelines of the DOP & T though the DPC is free to evolve its own method while assessing suitability of the candidate for further promotion, but under no circumstances, DPC or the Selection Committee can sit over the decision of the Appellate Authority regarding the grading/remarks in ACRs of a candidate. Therefore, once the grading and the remarks of respondent no. 1 was changed from 'good' to 'very good', the DPC had no authority in law to sit over the decision of the Appellate Authority and overlook the said order.
6. After hearing learned Standing Counsel for the Union of India Mr. Sanjay Bhatt and the learned Senior Counsel for respondent no. 1 Mr. Manoj Tiwari assisted by Ms. Akansha Gaur, we are of the considered view that the decision given by the learned Tribunal is on a well considered opinion, which is based on the reasoning that when the Appellate Authority had decided in favour of respondent no. 1, the DPC had no jurisdiction to sit over the wisdom of the Appellate Authority. Therefore, non- consideration of the candidature of the petitioner is patently illegal.
7. We, therefore, dismiss the writ petition and uphold the order dated 18.06.2015 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad (Circuit Bench at Nainital). Let the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal be complied with as expeditiously as possible.
(Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.) (Rajiv Sharma, J.) Avneet/