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9. Moreover this practice was followed for preparing the panel for the year 2000-01. The list finalized by UPSC contained the name of an officer from RBSSS also, i.e. Smt. Anita Gautam. It is thus clear that even UPSC had agreed to the inclusion of officers of RBSSS in the zone of consideration for being considered for promotion to the Grade-I of RBSS. The same practice was followed this time also, but since large number of representations were received from individuals as well as Association protesting against inclusion of Private Secretary in the zone of consideration of Grade-I of RBSS, the same was examined but no irregularity was found. Accordingly, their representations were rejected. Similarly number of applications under RTI were also received, therefore, a decision was taken to grant exemption to the PSs for being considered for promotion to Grade-I of RBSS. The notings of the file were not provided to the applicants as the said file related to the proposal for finalization of the Grade-I panels with UPSC which is pending. They have stated that in the meantime private respondents from Sl.No.4 to 9 Shri Paramjeet Singh, Ms. Bimla Seth, Shri A K Diwani, Shri V K Modi, Ms. Manjinder Kaur, Ms. Janki Ramesh, Ms. Kanchan Bela Jain & Ms. Manmohan Kaur have been regularly promoted as PPS on the basis of recommendation of the UPSC and the names have been circulated vide O.O. No.49 of 2009 (Annexure-I), as such they are not eligible for being considered for promotion to the Grade-I. Accordingly, UPSC is being requested to delete their names from the zone of consideration. In view of the facts as explained above, they have prayed that the OA may be dismissed.

24. The writ petitions are accordingly dismissed.

25. The petitioners shall pay costs to the respondents of the three writ petitions which we quantify to be Rs.5,000/- in each writ petition.

7. As regards the second condition of one years working as SO in the RBSS is concerned, the Applicants have argued that the position of the Official Respondents that they have been granted exemptions under the proviso to Rule 8 of the RBSS Rules is contrary to the facts. They have further stated that the notings in the file reveals that, the official Respondents have granted the benefit of the Proviso to Rule 8 (3) of the RBSS Rules in a fraudulent manner. The Respondents have suppressed the aforesaid vital facts with regard to the condition of eligibility of the RBSS for inclusion of their names in the zone of consideration prescribed in proviso to Rule 6 of the RBSSS. It was only later that the Applicants could get the information under Right to Information Act, 2005 and as per the said information now made available to them, it has been revealed that the Secretary, Railway Board observed vide his notings dated 14.8.2007 that the Respondent-Railways have given fictitious statement of exigency for inclusion of their names in the Zone of Consideration which is a matter of serious concern. In this regard, following notings in the departmental file are relevant:-

4. The other issue is relating to inclusion of Private Secretaries in the Zone of Consideration, which has been vehemently opposed by the Association and the officers. We have included the PSs in the ZOCs as per the practice followed in the past. In this regard, we have received some time back an important letter from Secretary, DOP&T addressed to Chairman, Railway Board dated 04.01.2007 (S.N.31). If this letter is perused and the relevant RBSS rules (which are exact replica of CSS Rules) are read carefully, an entirely different scenario emerges and our practice of including the PSs in the ZOCs for their promotion to Grade-I(US/DD) becomes contrary to the practice being followed in CSS. 5. The Railway Board Secretariat Service (RBSS) and Railway Board Secretariat Stenographer Service (RBSSS) are two distinct services with different Recruitment Rules (i.e. RSBB Rules, 1969 and RBSSS Rules, 1971) and having different hierarchy/avenue channel of promotion (AVC). In RBSS Rules, 1969, the prescribed AVC is Assistant - Section Officer  Grade-I (UD/DD)  Selection Grade (DS/JD). Further grades are not yet part of Rules. In RBSSS Rules, 1971, the present AV is Stenographer Grade D  Grade C  Grade B  Grade A. From 4th CPC, i.e., from 01.01.986, the Grade B and Grade A got merged and called as PS. Subsequently, further grades, i.e, PPS  Sr. PPS were created. The new grades and new designations are not yet part of the Rules.

16. We have also seen that contention of the Official Respondents that the PSs in the RBSSS were granted exemption under Rule 8 (3) of the RBSS Rules was fallacious. Their statement that the PSs have fulfilled the condition prescribed in the said rule that they should have worked as Section Officer for one year or in the absence of such work, it was certified that they could not be posted as SOs due to contingency of work was also wrong. In fact, the Tribunal had gone by the note of the Secretary, Railway Board that there was nothing fictitious about the real problem of the administration and it was due to the administrative compulsion that it was not possible to appoint the PSs as SOs for one year. But the actual facts revealed in the reply to the information sought under the RTI Act were different. In fact, the official records show that there was no such exigencies of service by reason whereof the PSs in the RBSSS could not be posted as SOs in the RBSS and no exceptions had been granted to the PSs in their individual capacity. Therefore, PSs in the RBSSS could not have been included in the zone of consideration for Under Secretary/Deputy Secretary in the RBSS.