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8.3 That this Honble Tribunal may be further pleased to quash the Chairman Railway Boards order dated 13.07.09 issued vide Railway Boards letter No.PC-V/2008/CC/9/RDSO dated 15.07.2009 (Annexure-3 of this O.A.). Besides, awarding any other or further relief as deemed fit and award of costs in favour of the applicants have also been prayed.

No interim relief in this case has been allowed.

4. The applicants would be represented by the learned counsels Shri B.S. Mainee with Ms Meenu Mainee. The learned counsel Shri R.L. Dhawan would appear for the respondents.

It is also stated that the applicants have been allowed to retain Group-B Non-Gazetted classification on personal basis; hence it is not a case of any anomaly as such. For these reasons, the claims of the applicants for parity with CSS/RBSS Assists and for grant of Apex Group C scale have been viewed to be without any substance.

6. In the instant OA, the thrust of the applicants arguments is on the loss of status and adverse impact on the promotional prospects. Shri B.S. Mainee, the learned counsel for the applicants would particularly advert to the averments in para 4.7 of the OA. It inter alia states that due to the unilateral changes in their service conditions since 2003 so many anomalies had arisen. The applicants who had initially been appointed to Group B Non-Gazetted status, had been forcibly clubbed with the Group C staff. The grant of Group-B Non-Gazetted status in personem is stated to be a sheer mirage. The placement of the applicants in Group C is also contended to be a reversion in terms of the provisions of para 211(i) of IREM (Vol.I) which inter alia includes promotions from lower grade to higher grade, one class to another class and one group to another group. It is contended that such a reversion could not be inflicted upon an employee except as a major penalty.

The learned counsel Shri B.S. Mainee would argue that whereas under the original scheme the next step of promotion for the applicants was to a Gazetted Group B post, and thereafter to a Group A post; quite to the contrary under the new scheme the further promotion of the applicants could only be to intermediate Group C posts before they could ever hope to become Gazetted Group B officers, least of all aspire for Group A.

It has also been argued that as a result of the new dispensation, the applicants have been made to suffer in the matter of ACP. Since the benefits under the ACP are in the next higher grade in the hierarchy, the colleagues of the applicants have been placed in higher scales as compared to them.

The learned counsel for the applicants would seek to project the present case as one of apparent injustice and arbitrariness as the applicants who had been selected as Assistants on the basis of some open Competitive Examination have been made to suffer adversely in service conditions as also in future promotional prospects as compared to their counterparts selected much later and posted in Central ministries and attached offices. The placement of the applicants in the RDSO - after its being declared a subordinate office like the Zonal Railways  is stated to be without inviting any option from the applicants and having been done unilaterally by the respondents. A contention of their initial allotment to the RDSO having been done on the basis of merit in the Competitive Exam would also be made. Shri B. S. Mainee would raise the legal plea of decisions of Government - even when they are policy decisions  being challengeable in judicial review, in cases they are arbitrary and violative of Article -14. In support the following dicta of the Apex Court in Dr. V.K. Kashyap Versus Union of India & Ors. [OA No.1896/2008] would be referred by the learned counsel.