R R VERMA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The judgment in this appeal is really an appendix to the judgment pronounced by us in Civil Appeal No. 2112 of 1979. The relevant facts may be gathered from that judgment. The further events requiring to be mentioned are these:While the writ petition filed by Ahluwalia in the High Court of Himachal Pradesh was pending, some of the respondents to the writ petition and one R. R. Verma all direct recruits, chose to file a writ petition in the Delhi High Court questioning the notice dated June 29, 1973, calling upon them to submit representations against the year of allotment proposed to be allotted to Sahney, Dhaliwal and Ahluwalia. After the writ petition of Ahluwalia was allowed, and after the Central Government passed the order dated July 27, 1979, pursuant to the direction issued by the High Court of Himachal Pradesh, the Delhi High Court dismissed the writ petition filed by the direct recruits as infructuous. The High Court, however, granted a certificate of fitness to appeal to this Court under Article 133 of the Constitution. Therefore, this appeal. The writ petition having been dismissed as infructuous we do not see how a certificate under Article 133 could have been granted. But, we do not want to dismiss the appeal on that preliminary ground. Shri R. K. Garg, learned counsel for the appellants challenged the order of the Central Government dated July 27, 1979 on three grounds: (1) Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules, offended Article 14 of the Constitution and was ultra vires as it conferred arbitrary and uncanalised power upon the Central Government to grant relaxation whenever it pleased it to do so. (2) The discretion to relax the rules was wrongly exercised in the present case. (3) The Central Govt. was powerless to review its earlier orders as such a power of review was not expressly conferred by the rules.

(2.) The second question has already been considered by us in Civil Appeal No. 2112 of 1979 and we have held that this was a fit case for the exercise of the power of the Central Government to relax the rules.

(3.) The first question is about the Constitutional validity of Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules 1960, Rule 3 is as follows: