S.K. Srivastava vs Union Of India And Ors. on 5 May, 1971
[See G. R. Baqual vs. State of Jammu and Kashmir ]. (5) The petitioner in his writ petition alleged that he verily believed that his appointment to the post of Director of Revenue Intelligence was approved by the Appointment Sub Committee of the Cabinet. The Government have refuted this claim in their counter-affidavit. The file of the appointment of the petitioner is seen by us and it is clear from a perusal of the file that the question of obtaining the sanction of the Sub Committee of the Cabinet never arose as the appointment of the petitioner was not regarded as a promotion or a substantive appointment in supersession of his colleagues. (6) Lastly, if the petitioner had really acquired a lien on the post of the Director of Revenue Intelligence which was a post outside the cadre of Indian Customs and Central Excise Service, Class 1. then the name of the petitioner would have been removed from the list of officers constituting the Indian Customs and Central Excise Service. Class I. But we find that the name of the petitioner is still shown in the said list as it was on the 7th of April 1970 in Annexure R-J (page 2) attached to the counter-affidavit of the Government. In the same way. the names of Shri Jasjit Singh and Shri Ramachandran who had also held the post of the Director of Revenue Intelligence are also shown in the list of the officers of the Indian Customs and Central Excise Service, Class I, who were in position on 7th April 1970, This shown that none of these officers went out of the Service simply because none of them acquired a lien on the post of the Director of Revenue Intelligence. As the petitioner had not acquired a lien on the post of the Director of Revenue Intelligence and as his transfer to the said post only in an officiating capacity, it follows that the petitioner did not have a right to hold the said post. His transfer from the said post to the post of a Collector of Customs may be viewed from the two angles. Firstly. it may be viewed as a reversion from a higher officiating post to a lower officiating post. Such a reversion, if in the course of routine administration. is not a reduction in rank. The petitioner, however, says that the reversion was by way of punishment. For, the Government arrived at the conclusion that the petitioner was guilty of a grave impropriety and, therefore, transferred him.