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2. The case of the petitioner is that the legality, validity and correctness of such experience certificates issued by GREF Officers and the Army officers in favour of the candidates seeking appointment to the post of Administrative Officer was a subject matter of writ petitions decided by a Division Bench of this Court vide order dated 10 th July, 2013 in the case of Vinod Singh and Ors. vs Union of India & Ors., wherein the Court took the view that the experience certificates issued by the officers in favour of such candidates were valid and proper and the same duly met the eligibility conditions notified by the UPSC. It is also contended that Special Leave Petitions (Civil) Nos. 37734-37736/2013 were preferred by the Union of India challenging the decision of the Division Bench in CWP No. 4997/2011, CWP 5457/2011, CWP No. 6403/2011. The said SLPs were dismissed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court of India on 6.1.2014. The petitioner's grievance is that despite the validity of the experience certificates, issued by GREF officers and Army officers, being upheld by the Supreme Court, the respondents have not withdrawn the minor penalty proceedings against him; although the Competent Authority has already exonerated all the 30 Army officers who had issued identical experience certificates.

3. Ms. Jyoti Singh, the learned Senior Advocate appearing for the petitioner has taken us through the sequence of events right from the stage when the experience certificate was issued by the petitioner in favour of one Mr. Virendra Dutt Joshi till the stage when the vacancy for the post of Director (Administration) had arisen. Drawing attention of the Court to the experience certificate dated 01.10.2007 issued by the petitioner in his capacity as Senior Administrative Officer, the learned senior counsel pointed out that in the experience certificate, the petitioner had only certified that Mr. Virendra Dutt Joshi, Supervisor, Non- Technical Grade-II was serving in the General Reserve Engineer Force since 10th June, 2002 till the date of issuance of the said certificate and also specified the nature of duties performed by him since his appointment on the said post. The learned senior counsel further submitted that little variations in the substance depended upon an individual's way of certification; that similar experience certificates were issued by Army officers as well as GREF officers. To draw a comparison of the experience certificate given in favour of Mr. Virendra Dutt Joshi with that of Mr. Indresh Kumar, who was occupying the same post and discharged similar duties as the former, the learned senior counsel pointed out that on comparison of these two certificates, one can clearly notice that in both the certificates, the nature of duties performed by the officers have been described as duties rendered in general administration, establishment, finance, accounts stores etc. The learned senior counsel also submitted that the experience certificate issued in favour of Mr. Indresh Kumar was a subject matter of the decision in the aforesaid writ petition although the experience certificate issued by the petitioner in favour of Mr. Virendra Dutt Joshi was not under the legal scrutiny of the Court because of his failure to make it to the list of short listed candidates.

4. The learned senior counsel also invited attention of the Court to a copy of the letter dated 6th December, 2012 whereby the matter was taken up by the Director General, Border Road Organisation with the Deputy Secretary BRDB requesting them to re-examine the cases of the GREF officers for their exoneration, at par with the Army officers, who already stood exonerated for issuing the same kind of experience certificates so that there is no disparity in dispensing justice in identical cases. The learned senior counsel has further drawn the attention of the Court to the list of 30 Army officers, out of which 20 officers against whom show cause notices were issued but were exonerated and for the remaining officers, it was decided to not proceed further and the matter with regard to the issuance of experience certificates by the Army officers was treated as closed. The learned senior counsel has also invited the attention of the Court to a letter dated 18th October, 2012 written by the Additional Director General to the Secretary, Ministry of Defence recommending repeal of the Memorandum dated 19th March, 2012 issued against the petitioner. The petitioner had filed a detailed representation against it seeking dropping of the proceedings against him under Rule 16 CCS (CCA) Rules, 1965 so that he is not deprived of being considered to the higher post of Director (Administration). However, no response or decision was taken thereon by the respondents.

13. We will not detain ourselves to draw a fine distinction between the experience certificate issued by the petitioner in favour of one Mr. Virendra Dutt Joshi and the experience certificates issued by the Army officers and the GREF officers in favour of other candidates, as every individual officer is entitled to give certification in a manner and style which may not match with the manner and style of another officer. No specific guidelines or criteria has been laid down in this regard, as to in what manner the experience certificate was required to be given. Suffice to mention that the experience certificate given by the petitioner in favour of Mr. Indresh Kumar was also a Supervisor, Non-Technical Grade-II and was one of the petitioner in the Writ Petition bearing CWP Nos. 4997/2011, CWP 5457/2011, CWP No. 6403/2011. On comparing the two, one cannot find any dissimilarity in the experience certificate issued by the petitioner in favour of the Virendra Dutt Joshi who was also working on the same post. In the year 2009, the UPSC has published and circulated an advertisement inviting applications for appointment to the 31 posts of 'Administrative Officer' (Group A Post) in the BRO. One of the conditions to seek appointment to the said post was for the candidate to have the requisite experience certificate of a post in a supervisory capacity. Various candidates who had applied in response to the said advertisement were working in different capacities with BRO either under the Army Officers or under the GREF Officers and accordingly the experience certificates in favour of such candidates were either issued by the Army Officers or by the GREF Officers. After completing the selection process, the UPSC had short- listed 38 candidates for their appointment to the post of 'Administrative Officer' but before these officers could be appointed, the Office of the BRDB made a request to the UPSC to reconsider their decision. The three members Screening Committee constituted by the BRDB vide their report dated 28.02.2011 recommended cancellation of the entire selection process and the prime reason for the said cancellation was the invalidity of the experience certificates issued in favour of such candidates by the Army Officers and by the GREF Officers. Hence, the selected candidates being aggrieved by the decision taken by the officers of the BRDB, challenged the same before this Court in W.P.(C) No. 4997/2011 and other writ petitions. In para 12 of their order dated 10.07.2013, the Division Bench held that the only factual question which arose before them and was pressed for adjudication was the validity of the experience certificates issued by the Army Officers/ GREF officers. In the said order, there is a reference to the reply given by BRDB in the Parliament to a starred question on the issue of the validity of experience certificates and the relevant paras of the judgment are reproduced as under: