BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD Vs. R SANTHAKUMARI VELUSAMY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Appellant, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., is the successor of the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, and Government of India (for short government or telecom department). The question involved in these matters is whether rules of reservation will apply to upgradation of posts.

(2.) There were four grades of employees of telecom departments known as Telegraphists or Telecom Operating Assistants in the Telecom Department. Promotions from one grade to a higher grade were on the basis of seniority/departmental examination. The telecom department introduced an One Time-Bound Promotion scheme (OTBP scheme for short) in the year 1983-84 under which regular employees who had completed 16 years of service in a grade, were placed in the next higher grade. After some years, the employees unions demanded a second time-bound promotion on completion of 26 years of service in the basic grade, as Group C and Group D cadres were only entitled to one-time bound promotion. The government decided that a second time bound promotion was not feasible. However, to provide relief from stagnation in the grade, the government decided to have a Biennial Cadre Review (BCR for short) under which a specified percentage of posts could be upgraded on the basis of functional justification.

(3.) The BCR scheme was accordingly introduced vide Circular dated 16.10.1990. It was made applicable to those cadres in Group C and Group D, for which one-time bound promotion scheme on completion of 16 years of service in the basic grade was in force. Under the said scheme, employees who were in regular service as on 1.1.1990 and had completed 26 years of satisfactory service in the basic cadres, were to be screened by a duly constituted Committee to assess their performance and determine their suitability for advancement and if they were found suitable, to be upgraded in the higher scale. The upgradation was restricted to 10% of the posts in Grade III. We extract below the relevant terms of the BCR from the Circular dated 16.10.1990: