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1. This writ petition challenges the orders of the Central Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as the 'CAT') dated 24th March, 2005 and 12th August 2005 by which the CAT dismissed the two O.A.s filed by the petitioners Dr. D Mishra (O.A 1192/2005) and Dr. Hari Shankar Gupta, (O.A. 1193/05) challenging the order of the CAT dated 24th March 2005 by which the CAT quashed the order of the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (hereinafter referred to as the ICAR) dated 30th November, 2004 whereby the recommendations of the Agricultural Services Recruitment Board (hereinafter referred to as the "ASRB") for appointment to the post of the Deputy Director General, Crop Science [hereinafter referred to as "DDG (CS)"] were rejected and a fresh advertisement was issued for filling up the said post.

5. The learned Counsel for the respondent No. 4 Shri Pattwalia submitted as follows:

a) The CAT in its order dated 24th March 2005 had specifically rejected the argument of bias of the Respondent No. 5. The relevant portion of the order of the CAT reads as follows:
16. One fact that was not disputed at either end was that the applicant in his application had disclosed all the facts pertaining to different publications that are to his credit, some of which were Dr. A.S. Khera. The long list indicates that there are large number of publications issued by him. It was also not disputed that the persons, who are closely related, are not supposed to be in the Selection Committee.

11. While rejecting the plea of bias raised by the petitioners in this Court before the CAT, the CAT has based its reasoning entirely upon the fact that both the respondents No. 4 and 5 had undertaken research jointly and published the papers jointly and even if the papers were about 100 in number, that itself could not give rise for a legitimate apprehension of bias. In arriving at this finding, the CAT has erred on two grounds:

(i) Firstly, it has not taken note of the fact that in its own order the CAT has noticed the fact that the respondent No. 5 was a referee of the respondent No. 4. This additional factor even though noticed by the CAT has not been dealt with in the impugned order.

12. The learned Counsel for the respondent has submitted that the plea of bias taken by the petitioner is an afterthought because the dissent notes written by the ex officio members and the first order of cancellation did not mention any bias by the respondent No. 5 which was submitted to the Competent Authority. In our view this plea of the respondent is liable to be rejected as according to the order of the CAT dated 23rd November 2004 the CAT while allowing the application of the Respondent No. had directed the reconsideration of his nomination de hors the dissent notes of the two-ex officio members. Thus, it did not matter whether the dissent notes of the two ex-officio members mentioned the fact of bias or not as they were according to the CAT's order to be ignored while considering the nomination of the Respondent No. 4 to the post of DDG (CS).