Central Administrative Tribunal - Delhi
Vikas Kumar S/O Rajpal Singh vs Union Public Service Commission on 12 April, 2010
CENTRAL ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL PRINCIPAL BENCH NEW DELHI Original Application No.1110/2010 This the 12th day of April, 2010 HONBLE SHRI JUSTICE V. K. BALI, CHAIRMAN HONBLE SHRI L. K. JOSHI, VICE-CHAIRMAN (A) Vikas Kumar S/O Rajpal Singh, R/o SA-128 Shastri Nagar, Ghaziabad, UP. Applicant ( By Shri T. N. Tripathi, Advocate ) Versus Union Public Service Commission through its Chairman, Dholpur House, Shahjahan Road, New Delhi. Respondent O R D E R Justice V. K. Bali, Chairman:
Vikas Kumar, an Assistant Consolidation Officer, the applicant herein, has filed this Original Application under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking to set aside order dated 23.3.2010 vide which his candidature for appointment on the post of Deputy Director (Administration/Insurance/ Training etc.) in the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), has been cancelled.
2. The applicant was appointed as Assistant Consolidation Officer in September, 1997 in the pay scale of Rs.4500-7000 and is presently working as such in Collectorate Compound, Ghaziabad, UP. It is his case that Assistant Consolidation Officer is a supervisory post, and that he has to supervise record keepers, patwari, lekhpals and peons etc. who work under his guidance and supervision. He claims to have experience in responsible capacity for more than 13 years. The respondent issued an advertisement in Employment News dated 9-15 May, 2009 vide which 71 posts of Deputy Directors in ESIC were to be filled. Essential eligibility criteria as mentioned in the advertisement, is as follows:
ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS:
A. EDUCATIONAL Degree of a recognized University.
B. EXPERIENCE About 5 years experience in a responsible capacity in a government or Quasi Government Organization/ Corporation/Government Undertaking, Local Body or in a Scheduled Bank.
DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS:
Knowledge of Social Insurance or Labour Problems;
Working knowledge of one or more Indian Languages especially Hindi;
Experience of setting up and controlling of a number of small offices. It is the case of the applicant that having the supervisory capacity and having more experience than required, he applied for the said post and the respondent issued admit card, and he was permitted to appear in written examination scheduled to be held on 9.8.2009, which he cleared, as would be made out from the result declared by the respondent on 13.11.2009. While he was awaiting the interview call, he instead received the impugned order dated 23.3.2010, whereby his candidature has been cancelled.
3. Shri T. N. Tripathi, learned counsel, in support of the Application contends that the order dated 23.3.2010 would be wholly illegal as the applicant answered the eligibility criteria mentioned in the advertisement wherein there was no indication of pay scale for the post under contention, and, in any case, he was working in a responsible capacity for far more than five years. Ordinarily, on the plea raised by the applicant as mentioned above, we would have called upon the respondent to show cause as to why present Application be not admitted. We, however, are not inclined to issue notice in this case, as only on 7.4.2010 we have decided two connected Applications bearing OA Nos.2894/2009 and 2935/2009 in the matter of Ashutosh Giri & Others v UPSC & Another, wherein challenge was to the eligibility criteria as mentioned above, on the ground that the same was absolutely vague, as what would be a responsible capacity would not be known, and every one would claim himself to be having experience in responsible capacity, even though he may be a clerk or a peon. It was urged in support of the OAs aforesaid that because of such vague criteria not only with regard to experience in responsible capacity, but also as regards experience of about five years, which again, could be one to five years, the applicants would be made to compete with thousands of people who actually appeared for the written examination, and their chances for appointment would be reduced. Finding prima facie merit in the contention, as mentioned above, we called upon the respondents to give their response. We may reproduce from our judgment dated 7.4.2010 the reply that came to be filed by the respondents:
.In the reply filed on behalf of respondent ESIC, it is inter alia pleaded that qualifications laid down in the impugned advertisement are in accordance with the Recruitment Regulations for the post of Deputy Director in ESIC and that there is no infirmity in the same. In the counter reply filed on behalf of UPSC, it has inter alia been pleaded that as per policy of the Commission, for short-listing the candidates to be called for interview under direct recruitment quota, as an aid to interview, written tests (recruitment tests) are held inter alia in those recruitment cases where the posts advertised are large in number and/or number of applications is very large. It is further pleaded that based on experience, if it is anticipated that the number of applications are likely to be very large, a pre-decided recruitment test is held and in such cases while advertising the posts, the date of recruitment test, along with the scheme and syllabus, is indicated by the Commission in the advertisement itself. In such cases, the application is a two-stage process. At the initial stage, basic data of the candidate is solicited, and no documents are asked for at this stage. It is only after a candidate has qualified on merit in the recruitment test that the detailed information along with all relevant and necessary documents is solicited, which are scrutinized. In some cases, after an advertisement inviting applications containing two parts (part 1 brief particulars of candidates, and part 2 detailed particulars) is issued and on receipt of applications, if it is found that the number of applications received is quite large and it may not be feasible to call all the candidates who have applied for interview, the Commission decides to hold recruitment test for short-listing the candidates to be called for interview, and accordingly, through a notice published in leading newspapers, the candidates are informed about the date, time and centers of the recruitment test and the scheme and syllabus of the test. It is then pleaded that in 2002, a post-decided recruitment test was held for recruitment to ten posts of Deputy Director (Administration/Insurance/Training etc.) in ESIC. Guided by the past experience, in the instant recruitment case as large number of applications were anticipated, it was decided to hold a recruitment test to short-list the candidates. It is pleaded that interviews are held for those who are declared qualified in the written test (recruitment test) and are found eligible after scrutiny of their detailed applications, and respective weightage of the recruitment test and interview is decided by the Commission. In the case of pre-decided recruitment tests, on receipt of single page application forms from the candidates, a computerized preliminary scrutiny is done to check whether the candidate has paid requisite fees, whether the candidate is within age, whether the application has been received in time, whether the candidate is eligible on the basis of data entered by him on his one page application, and whether the candidate has applied in the single page application format prescribed by the Commission. Candidates are admitted for written test on the basis of their declaration in their single page application form that that they possess the requisite qualification/experience for the post applied for. Complete details of the candidates for the purposes of scrutiny and determination of their eligibility are solicited from the candidates who have been short-listed on the basis of result of written recruitment test. For this purpose detailed application form and the documents are called to only substantiate the claims made by the candidates in a single page application form. On manual scrutiny of the detailed application form, only the candidates who fulfill the requisite essential educational qualification/experience and those who have substantiated their claim by way of submitting the requisite certificate/documents in the proforma sent to them along with the detailed application form only, are called for interview. The candidature of those who fail to substantiate their claims by way of submitting the requisite certificates/documents in the proforma sent to them along with the detailed application form is cancelled by the Commission, and only the eligible candidates are called for interview. The recruitment, it is further averred, is carried out only on the basis of notified recruitment rules of the posts of the concerned Ministry/Department, and that in the instant case the indenting department, i.e., ESIC, sent the requisition for recruitment to 71 posts of Deputy Director (Administration/Insurance/Training etc.), indicating the following educational qualifications/experience:
ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS:
A. EDUCATIONAL Degree of a recognized University.
B. EXPERIENCE About 5 years experience in a responsible capacity in a government or Quasi Government Organization/ Corporation/Government Undertaking, Local Body or in a Scheduled Bank.
DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS:
Knowledge of Social Insurance or Labour Problems;
Working knowledge of one or more Indian Languages especially Hindi;
Experience of setting up and controlling of a number of small offices. Based on the requisition received from ESIC, UPSC published the advertisement in the Employment News dated 9.5.2009 for holding recruitment test for 71 posts of Deputy Director (Administration/ Insurance/Training etc.) in ESIC and inviting applications from the candidates for the said posts. A single page application format was also published in the advertisement in which the candidates were directed to apply. In order to be fair, uniform and just, the Commission defined for purposes of scrutiny the experience of about five years as experience should be 4= years and above. As was done in the earlier selection for the same post, the Commission decided the same norms for determining experience in a responsible capacity in the instant case for pre-decided recruitment test for recruitment on 71 posts of Deputy Directors in ESIC. Therefore, it was decided for scrutiny purposes that only those candidates working in the pre-revised pay scale of Rs.5500-9000 (revised to Rs.9300-34800 + Grade Pay Rs.4200/-) having experience in supervisory capacity, may be treated as having experience in a responsible capacity. During the recruitment process in the year 2002, while determining experience in a responsible capacity, the following norms were followed:
i) To treat only that part(s) of the experience which convincingly was/were in a responsible capacity.
ii) Appropriate level of pay scale and nature of duties remained the guiding and deciding criterion for determining the relevancy of experience.
iii) Any experience which was not having an element of experience in a supervisory capacity was also not considered as a relevant experience as per EQ(B).
iv) The pay scale of Rs.8000-13500 may not be desired to be fed with more than 2 level lower category pay scale in the normal channel.
v) As far as candidates working in Central/State Governments, Quasi Government organizations, Local Bodies, etc. are concerned, candidates with at least in the minimum of the pay scale of Rs.5500/- (pre-revised) of the basic plus having requisite nature of duties of the post/experience was considered.
vi) As far as candidates working in Central/State Governments/Quasi government Corporations, Government Undertakings and Scheduled Banks are concerned, the level of the posts (mainly as Manager, Administrator, Officer, Supervisor, Controlling Officer, etc.) held as well as nature of duties performed at that responsible level was taken into consideration while computing experience as per EQ(B).
vii) No weightage was given to any claim of experience in case it is not acquired in a Government or Quasi Government Organization/Corporation/ Government Undertaking, Local Body or in a Scheduled Bank as per the requirements of EQ(B).
viii) No weightage was given to any experience acquired prior to possessing the Essential Qualifications i.e. EQ(A).
ix) No weightage was given to the higher degree/ qualification in view of the nature of EQ(B).
x) No weightage was given to any experience acquired in Part Time/Honorary/Voluntary capacity due to problem of qualification. In response to the advertisement in question, 15940 candidates applied. A computerized preliminary scrutiny was done to check whether the candidate had paid requisite fees; whether the candidate was within age; whether the application had been received in time; and whether the candidate was prima facie found eligible on the basis of data furnished by him in the single page application format. After the computerized preliminary scrutiny, 12689 candidates were admitted to the written recruitment test, which was held on 9.8.2009. Result of the test was declared on 13.11.2009 and 350 candidates were declared qualified in the test. All the 350 candidates were sent detailed application forms with the request to forward the same duly filled in along with requisite certificates/documents and to ensure that all the requisite certificates/documents attached therewith are in prescribed proforma sent along with the detailed application form, to substantiate their claims made in the single page application form, so as to reach the Commission by 15.12.2009. After the duly filled in detailed application forms were received in the Commissions office, the same were scrutinized manually and only those candidates who fulfilled the requisite essential qualification/experience and those who substantiated their claim by way of submitting the requisite certificates/documents in the proforma sent to them along with the detailed application form were called for interview. The candidature of those candidates who failed to substantiate their claims by way of submitting the requisite documents were cancelled by the Commission at that stage. The OAs referred to above were dismissed by observing that short-listing is permissible, particularly when the number of candidates may be far more than commensurate to the posts that may be available. We also noted that the eligibility criteria provided in the advertisement was as per recruitment rules, and that the same could not be changed, but the respondents could, by way of short-listing, say as to what would be experience in a responsible capacity. We may further note that the criteria that may be mentioned in the advertisement or rules for short-listing is permissible under law. The UPSC, after written test was held, short-listed the candidates on the criteria as mentioned in the impugned order dated 23.3.2001, which reads as follows:
I am directed to refer to the duly filled Detailed Application Form sent by you on the above mentioned subject and to inform you that your candidature has been cancelled by the Commission due to lack of experience in responsible capacity*.
*any person in the pay scale of Rs.5500-9000 (Revised pay scale of Rs.9300-34800 with Grade pay of Rs.4200/-) and having minimum experience of 4= years and above in supervisory capacity is treated as having experience in responsible capacity. However, this precludes the experience of the professionals viz. a) Lecturers/Teachers/Masters; b) advocates, c) Jr.Clerk/LDC/UDC/Cashier/Junior Accountant; d) Research Asociates; e) LIC Career Agents; f) NGOs/NSS/YUVA Kendras Experiences; g) Stenographers/PA/PS/PPS etc.; h) Doctors; i) Family Counselors; & j) Social Workers. This criteria of short-listing has been upheld by us. If UPSC is of the opinion that the post held by the applicant cannot be said to be in a responsible capacity, the court would not substitute the said opinion by its own. The mere fact that some record keepers, patwaris, lekhpals and peons are working under the supervision of the applicant would not necessarily mean that he is working in a responsible capacity. Be that as it may, the applicant is admittedly not in the pay scale of Rs.5500-9000 (revised to Rs.9300-34800 plus Grade Pay Rs.4200). He is in the pre-revised pay scale of Rs.4500-7000 (revised to Rs.5200-20000).
4. Finding no merit in this Application, we dismiss the same in limine.
( L. K. Joshi ) ( V. K. Bali ) Vice-Chairman (A) Chairman /as/