Central Administrative Tribunal - Jabalpur
Mrs Sapna Mehrotra vs M/O Human Resource Development on 24 April, 2019
Subject: absorption 1 OA No.200/00911/2013
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL, JABALPUR BENCH
JABALPUR
ORGINAL APPLICATION NO.200/00911/2013
Jabalpur, this Wednesday, the 24th day of April, 2019
HON'BLE MR.NAVIN TANDON, ADMINISTRATIVE MEMBER
HON'BLE MR.RAMESH SINGH THAKUR, JUDICIAL MEMBER
1. Mrs. Sapna Mehrotra, aged 46 yrs, working as Computer Operator-
cum-Programmer (COCP), National Technical Manpower Information
System (NTMIS), Nodal Centre Room No.110, Government Women's
Polytechnic Campus, Shivaji Nagar, Bhopal-462016 M.P., R/o 7-Karbala
Road, Bhopal, M.P. Mob 9753300625
2. S.N.Gurjar, aged 46 years, working as Research Associate, National
Technical Manpower Information System (NTMIS), Nodal Centre Room
No.110, Government Women's Polytechnic Campus, Shivaji Nagar,
Bhopal-462016 M.P., R/o BDA Plot No.64, Near Shiv-Durga Temple,
Panchsheel Nagar, Bhopal-462003, M.P., Mob: 8720800356,
E-mail: [email protected]
3. Mrs.Gayathri Pillai W/o N Unnikrishnan, aged 52 years, working as
Personal Assistant (PA) National Technical Manpower Information
System (NTMIS), Nodal Centre Room No.110, Government Women's
Polytechnic Campus, Shivaji Nagar, Bhopal-462016 M.P., R/o 41- Surbhi
Parisar, Behind Bank Officer's Public School, Ayodhya bypass Road
Bhopal-462041, M.P. Mob: 8109201335
E-mail: [email protected] - APPLICANTS
(By Advocate - Shri Narendra Bhavsar)
Versus
1. Union of India through Secretary, Department of Higher Education
(T), Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), 128-C-wing,
Shastri Bhawan, New Delhi-110001.
2. Chairman, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), 7th
Floor, Chanderlok Building, Janpath, New Delhi-110001
3. Director General, Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR),
Plot No.25, Sector A-7, Institutional Area, Narela, Delhi-110040.
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Subject: absorption 2 OA No.200/00911/2013
4. Secretary, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh, Department of Technical
Education and Skill Development, Mantralaya, Vallabh Bhawan, Bhopal,
M.P.-462001.
5. Director, Technical Education, M.P. 4th Floor, Satpura Bhawan,
Bhopal, M.P.-462004. - RESPONDENTS
(By Advocate -Shri Surendra Pratap Singh for respondent No.1(MHRD),
Shri Amit Khatri for respondent No.2 (AICTE),
Shri S.K.Mishra for respondent No.3 (IAMR), &
Shri Akash Choudhary respondents Nos.4 & 5 (State of M.P.)
ORDER
By Navin Tandon, AM.-
The applicants are aggrieved by non-absorption of their services and denial of salary from September, 2012.
2. The brief facts of the applicants' case are that - 2.1 The applicants are working under administrative control of respondent No.4/5 responsible for running Nodal Centre under the scheme launched by MHRD UOI (respondent No.1) funded by AICTE (respondent No.2) and monitored by IAMR (respondent No.3) wing of Planning Commission of India.
2.2 Applicants No.1 to 3 were selected and appointment on the posts of Computer Operator-cum-Programmer (COCP), Research Associate and Personal Assistant on 29.09.1992, 29.06.1999 and 02.02.1990 respectively and are still continuing. They have rendered more than 23 Page 2 of 14 Subject: absorption 3 OA No.200/00911/2013 years service and have also been extended the monitory benefits under 5th and 6th CPC.
2.3 However, neither their services are being absorbed nor they are being paid salaries since September,2012 on account of non-release of grant by the respondent No.2 AICTE. Due to lack of co-ordination amongst respondents, the applicants are subjected to harassment. 2.4 As per recommendations of Bhat Committee and decision of respondent No.1 MHRD and respondent No.2 AICTE, the services of the applicants are to be absorbed against the suitable posts giving due weightage to their past services rendered for more than 23 years. 2.5 Applicants preferred representation dated 30.08.2013 to respondent No.4, representation dated 27.07.2013 and 17.07.2013 to respondent No.1 for release of salary due from September,2012 till date of representation and for redeployment/absorption of their services against suitable posts which yielded no results.
2.6 The respondent No.1 MHRD vide letter dated 07.05.2013 (Annexure A-6) intimated that the NTMIS Non plan scheme has been replaced by a new plan scheme i.e. National Information System on Technical Human Resource (NISTECHR) and respondent No.2 IAMR is directed to engage the former staff of NTMIS Scheme as recommended by the Bhat Committee for the execution of NISTECHR scheme till they Page 3 of 14 Subject: absorption 4 OA No.200/00911/2013 are re-deployed/adjusted in the respective Nodal Centres as decided in the meeting held on 22nd January 2013 and directed AICTE to settle the payment of NTMIS Scheme which was forwarded vide letter dated 20.05.2013 (Annexure A-5) to the Project Officer, NTMIS, Bhopal under respondent No.5.
2.7 Number of employees working in various centres through India filed applications before different Benches of this Tribunal against their non-absorption into services by the respondents. Two similarly situated employees, namely, Mrs.Asha Tanawade and Shri Yallapa Patil preferred Original Applications Nos. 268 and 269 of 2015 in Mumbai Bench of this Tribunal, praying for their absorption and back wages. Those Original Applications were allowed vide order dated 17.08.2016 (Annexure A-23). The Writ Petition No.305/2017 filed against the said order was dismissed by Hon'ble High Court of Judicature at Bombay vide order dated 21.03.2018 (Annexure A-24). Accordingly vide orders dated 11.06.2018 (Annexures A-26 & A-27) abovementioned persons were offered appointments on the posts of Research Associate/Personal Assistant.
3. The applicants have prayed for the following reliefs in this Original Application:
"(8.1) This Hon'ble Tribunal be pleased to direct the respondents to pay the arrears of wages as per 6th CPC due from the month of Sept.'2012 till date together with interest @ 18% to the applicants henceforth. Page 4 of 14
Subject: absorption 5 OA No.200/00911/2013 (8.2) This Hon'ble Tribunal further be pleased to direct to redeploy/absorb services of the applicants with respondent department No.1 MHRD/AICTE-respondent No.2 without any further loss of time against the suitable posts with pay protection in pursuance of recommendations of Bhat Committee and decision taken in meeting held on 22nd January 2013 called by respondent No.1/MHRD enclosed at Annexure A-2 collectively;
(8.3) This Hon'ble Tribunal also be kind enough to direct the respondents to compensate the applicants adequately for mental agony suffered on account of non-payment of salary since September 2012 and non-absorption/redeployment in service beside awarding cost of the application.
(8.4) Any other relief/s as this Hon'ble Tribunal may deem fit and proper in view of the circumstances be granted in favour of the applicant".
4. The respondents in their replies have submitted as under:-
4.1 The respondent No.1 in their reply have submitted that in November,2010, after a review of the programme, AICTE withheld the salary grants of the officials of NTMIS because it was of the view that the data compiled by NTMIS was not in a form that could be used by AICTE. However, on the insistence of MHRD, AICTE had released payment of salary upto 31st March,2013 based on 5th CPC. 4.1.1 Further, as decided by AICTE and IAMR, the NTMIS Scheme has been closed on 31st March,2013.
4.1.2 To examine the issue of erstwhile NTMIS Scheme and exploring the possibilities of adjustment of staff of nodal centres, a committee namely Bhat Committee was constituted by the MHRD, under the Chairmanship of Director, NIT Jaipur. The committee has submitted its report and recommended 33 staff from different 15 Nodal Centres Page 5 of 14 Subject: absorption 6 OA No.200/00911/2013 including 04 staff from Nodal Centre, for adjustment/deployment.
Accordingly, the Ministry requested all Nodal Centres to assess the possibility of absorption of the erstwhile NTMIS staff against vacancies of respective Nodal Centre vide letters dated 09.12.2013(Annexure R-1) and 02.02.2015.
4.1.3 Thereafter, the Department of Technical Education and Skill Development, Govt. of MP has informed that out of 04 recommended employees of NTMIS Nodal Centre, Bhopal an employee namely Meena Gupta, Project Officer has superannuated on 30.10.2013. Thereafter, only 03 persons were left for redeployment/adjustment from NTMIS Nodal Centre Bhopal.
4.1.4 The matter relates to concerned Institute, where the nodal centre was established. However, the respondent No.1 has requested all host Institutes/Organisations to consider for redeployment/adjustment of erstwhile NTMIS staff vide letter dated 09.12.2013. Therefore, the Ministry has no connection with the applicants.
4.2 The respondent No.2 (AICTE) in their reply have submitted that AICTE provides grant on such terms and conditions to technical institution and Universities imparting technical education in coordination with the Commission. The power and functions of the Council are spelt out under Section 10 of Chapter III of the All India Council for Technical Page 6 of 14 Subject: absorption 7 OA No.200/00911/2013 Education Act, 1987. Clause C of Section 10 provides allocate and disbursement of fund of the Council. The provision is unambiguous and clear.
4.2.1 The respondent No.2 in their additional reply have submitted that the AICTE has not withheld the salary of the applicants. In fact, the AICTE has released the entire dues till the period of 31.03.2013 as per claim made by the Nodal Centre, Bhopal.
4.3 The respondent No.3 in their reply have submitted that they are neither the appointing nor the pay fixation authority. The respondent No.5 is the appointing authority of the applicants. The respondent No.2 is the pay fixation authority and the sanctions in regard to the fixation of the pay were also issued by the respondent No.2 and same were given to the respondent No.2 to disburse accordingly. The respondent No.3 is only working as a lead centre on the instructions of the respondents Nos.1 & 2 and the applicants in O.A. are employees working with the respondent No.5.
4.3.1 In a similar Original Application No.315/CH/2013 filed before the Chandigarh Bench of the Tribunal, the Tribunal vide order dated 09.09.2014 did not fix any liability against the respondent No.3. 4.3.2 The IAMR due to lack of clarification regarding the nature of appointment and release of salary of the applicants, IAMR did not Page 7 of 14 Subject: absorption 8 OA No.200/00911/2013 implement the new project NISTECHR and did not take any funds from AICTE for NISTECHR project. As the IAMR did not start the new project NISTECHR thus there is no question of engaging/absorption of applicants.
4.3.3 The applicants are not the employees of IAMR. The IAMR is not the appointing authority and has never given any appointment letter to the applicants. The project on which the applicants were appointed by Director, Technical Education, Madhya Pradesh was a AICTE project. IAMR was a recipient of funds from AICTE to pay its own IAMR staff working in NTMIS as IAMR was only the lead centre and was just doing supervision of research work. Even the lead centre role ended on 31.03.2012 as per AICTE letter dated 04.01.2012. 4.4 The respondents Nos. 4& 5 in their reply have submitted that no prayer has been made against the respondents 4 & 5, hence they sought the prayer to delete their names from array of respondents.
5. In his rejoinder to the reply of respondent No.1 the applicants have submitted thus:
5.1 The respondent No.1 by way of reply tried to evade its prime responsibility of rehabilitation of the applicants and payment of salary/ arrears etc. though was premier launcher of erstwhile NTMIS scheme in the year 1983 (which is now redesigned/renamed as NISTECHR). Page 8 of 14
Subject: absorption 9 OA No.200/00911/2013 5.2 The respondent No.1 admitted that the applicants are employees of
respondent No.2-AICTE the offspring of respondent No.1-MHRD and, therefore, cannot run from its liability leaving the applicants in lurch. 5.3 The respondent No.1 admitted that NTMIS(National Technical Manpower Information Scheme) was set up in 1983 within the domain of respondent No.1 MHRD to generate and maintain a reliable database for planning and expansion of technical education in the country and subsequently transferred the scheme to AICTE in the year 1994.
However, even after transfer of the scheme, the overall control of respondent No.1 never ceased to exist and, therefore, the respondent No.1 is not permitted to raise its hands over the issue of redeployment of applicants by shifting liability on nodal centres after replacement of NTMIS scheme by NISTECHR Scheme.
5.4 All the posts were sanctioned by MHRD- respondent No.1 itself with specific instructions for recruitment against all posts authorising the host institution Respondents Nos.4 and 5 to appoint the staff which were complied with by the respondents Nos.4 & 5 by constituting selection committee consisting of State Government and Central Government officers for recruitment of applicants. Thus, the involvement of respondent No.1 was actively prominent and effective in all spheres and cannot be denied.
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Subject: absorption 10 OA No.200/00911/2013 5.5 The respondent No.3 IAMR was chosen as Lead Centre by the
respondent No.1 and the scheme was implemented in co-ordination with the Lead Centre and all correspondence in this respect were made by Lead Centre-IAMR on behalf of MHRD and AICTE. Moreover the State Govt. of MP was authorised to appoint the sanctioned staff and disburse them salary and other entitlements as per approval of Lead Centre/AICTE. The Lead Centre was issuing instructions after receiving approval from AICTE.
5.6 Further, the NTMIS grant was kept separately for payment of staff and the staffs so recruited were governed by Central Government Service rules and not under State Government service rules. 5.7 Vide letter dated 07.05.2013 the respondent No.1 implemented new scheme NISTECHR replacing the existing NTMIS scheme as evident from Annexure A-6 with the following directives - "IAMR is directed to engage the former staff of the NTMIS scheme as recommended by the Bhat Committee for the executive of NISTECHR Scheme till they are Re-deployed/Adjusted in the respective Nodal Centres as decided in the meeting held on 22nd January,2013" with the provision of grant up to 2016-17.
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Subject: absorption 11 OA No.200/00911/2013 5.8 Moreover the AICTE released its last grant for four regular
employees including the applicants from the new scheme NITSECHER under non-plan head vide letter dated 16.06.2014 (Annexure A-14). 5.9 The applicants were granted the benefits of 5th and 6th CPC also. Moreover, even after so called closure of erstwhile NTMIS on 31st March 2013, no letters were issued by either of the respondents directing the applicants not to attend office. On the contrary the applicants are attending the office regularly and punctually. The applicants are being paid as per 6th CPC on receiving grant under salary head. However, are not allotted grant under head of office expenditure for conducting survey and therefore applicants are exploiting their own resources for performing office duties.
6. Heard the learned counsel of parties and carefully perused the pleadings of the respective parties and the documents annexed therewith.
7. During the course of arguments at the outset the learned counsel for the applicants submitted that a similar matter was also recently decided by the Allahabad Bench of the Tribunal in the case of Mukesh Chand Sharma & others Vs. Union of India and others, Original Application No.330/143/ 2015 vide order dated 10.01.2019 and the case of the present applicants is squarely covered with this decision of Page 11 of 14 Subject: absorption 12 OA No.200/00911/2013 Allahabad Bench of the Tribunal and, therefore, this Original Application may be decided on similar lines.
8. Relevant portion of the order of the Allahabad Bench of the Tribunal in the matters of Mukesh Chand Sharma (supra) is reproduced as under:-
"(37). From the above mentioned, it is obvious that the applicants who were working with the BOAT, Kanpur were similarly placed with other staff of NTMIS in 20 Nodal Centres across the country.
With the conclusion of the NTMIS Scheme in 2013, similarly placed staff had made representations and also sought relief from the Tribunal and Hon'ble High Courts. The Mumbai Bench of this Tribunal in its order dated 17.08.2016 passed in OA No. 268 and 269 of 2015 had directed that such staff should be paid the salary and arrears as due in terms of 6th Pay Commission recommendations till the time their services were utilised in the scheme and also to absorb the staff against the existing vacancies in any centre of AICTE. The decision of Mumbai Bench of this Tribunal has covered all the aspects and has suitably directed the MHRD and AICTE to do the needful. This decision of the Mumbai Bench of this Tribunal was also upheld by the Hon'ble High Court of Mumbai. It is also a fact that as a result of the orders passed by the Mumbai Bench of this Tribunal and Hon'ble High Court of Mumbai, the MHRD and AICTE have taken necessary action and the applicants of OA No. 268 and 269 of 205 have been offered jobs. Similarly situated staff have also been duly absorbed by BOPT against vacant posts.
(38). From the arguments and submissions of respondents, it is evident that respondent no. 1 to 3 have repeatedly mentioned that responsibility for absorption/redeployment of the applicants is the responsibility of respondent no. 4 whereas respondent no. 4 in his submissions has clearly indicated that it is the responsibility of respondent no. 2 and 3 to ensure that staff is absorbed/deployed in terms of Bhatt Committee Report and the decision taken in the meeting chaired by Secretary, MHRD. It is also brought on record that cases of similarly placed staff has been decided by Mumbai Page 12 of 14 Subject: absorption 13 OA No.200/00911/2013 Bench of this Tribunal and the order has been upheld by the Hon'ble High Court of Mumbai. I that order clear directives have been given to MHRD and AICTE to absorb these applicants immediately in any of the institutes of MHRD or AICTE and to also release all arrears of salary and allowance extending the benefit as recommended by the 6th Pay Commission. In the present OA also as an interim relief, directives have already been given to respondents to keep reserve one post of UDC and one post of Assistant for applicant no. 3 and 2 respectively. MHRD & AICTE have taken necessary action following order dated 17.08.2016 of CAT Mumbai Bench in OA Nos. 268 and 269 of 2015 which was upheld by the Hon'ble High Court of Mumbai for the similarly placed persons. Similar action be taken for the applicants also by MHRD & AICTE (39). In view of the above mentioned, the respondent no. 1 and 2 are directed to release all arrears of salary and allowances by extending the benefits as recommended by the 6th Pay Commissioner due to the applicants and take immediate steps to absorb these applicants in BOAT Kanpur or in any of the institutes of MHRD or AICTE, in the event the replaced scheme NISTECHR is not operating from the Nodal Centre at Kanpur, within a period of 03 months from the date of receipt of this Order. (40). With the above directions the OA is disposed of. No order as to costs" .
9. On perusal of the order of Allahabad Bench of the Tribunal as well as the facts of the present case we are convinced with the submission of the learned counsel for the applicants that the present case is squarely covered by the said decision and may be disposed of in similar terms.
10. Accordingly, this Original Application is disposed of with directions to respondents Nos. 1 and 2 to release all arrears of salary and allowances by extending the benefits as recommended by the 6th Pay Commission due to the applicants and take immediate steps to absorb Page 13 of 14 Subject: absorption 14 OA No.200/00911/2013 these applicants in the present Institute or in any of the Institutes of MHRD or AICTE within a period of three (3) months from the date of communication of this Order. However, the applicants are not entitled for any interest on the due amount. No costs.
(Ramesh Singh Thakur) (Navin Tandon)
Judicial Member Administrative Member
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