Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

ii) Direct the respondents to allow Anti-Date seniority to the applicant from the date of his appointment, i.e., 4th March, 2008 and allow twofold promotion to the pay scale of Rs.10,000/-.

iii) Make the said order absolute.

iv) Pass such other order/orders, which may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case and in the interest of justice".

2. The applicant is primarily aggrieved by the alleged discrimination and the refusal on the part of official respondents to hold a Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC, in short) meeting to provide promotion to the applicant, which he claims to be due to him. He has alleged that the DPC has not been conducted due to non-existence of the Recruitment Rules (RRs, in short) for the officers of Analyst Stream in Respondent No.2 National Technical Research Organization (NTRO, in short). As has been stated in the opening paragraph itself, he has filed the present OA to agitate the aforesaid issue, which would not only be on behalf of himself, but also in representative capacity, as the reliefs sought by him in the OA, as reproduced by us above, would also be available to other officers of Analyst Cadre in the NTRO.

4. The case of the applicant lies in a narrow compass. The applicant had applied for regular appointment in the Respondent No.2 organization-NTRO in January, 2005, in the pay scale of Rs.14300- 18300/-, and was interviewed along with others on 09.02.2005. Pending finalization of his case for regular appointment, he was offered an appointment on contract basis as Officer on Special Duty (OSD, in short). Consequently, he resigned from the Army service in the rank of Colonel, and joined NTRO as OSD in July, 2005, without any break in service. He has submitted that his the then post of OSD (Liaison and Analysis) was in the Administrative Cadre of NTRO.

5. Thereafter, NTRO issued a Circular for recruitment against the posts of Director, for which also the applicant applied on 20.06.2007, was called for interview on 23.11.2007, and he appears to have been provisionally selected, and he joined at the post of Director vide letter dated 03.03.2008 (Annexure A-2).

OA No-345/2015

6. According to the applicant, another stream of posts of Analyst Cadre was created in NTRO, different from the Administrative Cadre in which he held his post. The applicant has further submitted that through letter dated 11.04.2008, a decision was communicated that the Analyst Cadre would be different from the Administrative Cadre, containing the posts then designated as similar to Administration/Establishment Divisions. After the applicant had completed two years in the post of Director, in the year 2008, he himself put up and forwarded draft RRs for the now differentiated Analyst Cadre, and requested NTRO to conduct a DPC for his promotion against an Analyst Cadre post. His Group Director also recommended that he is due for promotion on 05.03.2010, after completion of two years as Director w.e.f. 04.03.2008. However, the Establishment Branch of NTRO declined to conduct a DPC for considering the applicant's promotion, stating that the same cannot be done unless the RRs for the Analyst Cadre are finalized, and come into force.

18. It was further submitted that scrapping the previous DPC held for his promotion was in contravention of the DoP&T OM dated 17.12.2012, whereby it has been clearly directed that a panel set up by the DPC shall be valid for one year. It was further submitted that RRs not being placed in public domain itself is a violation of the Standing Instructions in this regard. It was submitted that the arguments put-forth by the NTRO are self-defeating, as, if the applicant was not qualified, he ought not to have been shifted from the Administrative Cadre to the Analyst Cadre. It was further submitted that the NTRO has wrongly placed reliance on Department of Expenditure OM dated 18.09.2013, which is applicable only in those cases where the post has remained vacant due to non- availability of suitable candidates, and when the post has been kept vacant, in spite of the applicant not being promoted, the respondents OA No-345/2015 cannot be allowed to take advantage of their own wrong doings. It was submitted that the judgments and orders cited by the respondents are distinguishable, and are not applicable to the instant case, and it was prayed that the OA be allowed, and respondents be directed to conduct the DPC of the applicant, and grant him two fold promotions.