JUNIOR TELECOM OFFICERS FORUM Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Junior Telecom Officers Forum (for short 'Forum') through Shri Satpal Batra claiming to be the President of the Forum has filed Special Leave Petition Nos. 9063-64 of 1992 against the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi refusing Intervention Application of the petitioner in O.A. No. 2407 of 1988 vide an order dated 22-4-1992 : Transfer Petition (Civil) No.417 of 1992 seeking transfer of various petitions pending in different benches of the Tribunal to this Court under Art. 139A(i) of the Constitution of India and Writ Petition (Civil) No. 460 of 1992. Mr. Ashok Desai, the learned senior advocate appearing for the petitioners in till the cases requested for the writ petition to be taken up for consideration, since, the issues involved in the writ petition and the special leave petitions are the same. We shall, accordingly, first take up the writ petition for consideration. The relief prayed for in the writ petition is as follows :

(2.) The controversy, as we have been able to gather from the voluminous record of the writ petition, relates to the mode of promotion to Telecom Engineering Service (Group B) as well as to the fixation of seniority of junior telecom officers and assistant engineers in that category and the preparation of the eligibility or the approved list for the said purpose by the department in accordance with the recruitment rules and Para 206 of the P and T Manual, Vol. IV. Para 206 provide for a pass in the departmental qualifying examination as a condition precedent for promotion to the, Telecom Engineering Service (hereinafter TES) Group B. Para 206(II) of the Manual provides that promotion to the TE and WS (Class II) will be according to the seniority- cum-fitness but engineering supervisors who pass the qualifying examination earlier will rank senior en-bloc at a group to those who pass the examination later. Their seniority intere se has been arranged according to their seniority in the cadre of engineering supervisors. In case the year of passing of the examination is the same, the percentage of marks obtained at the end of theoretical training, at the training centres, governs the arrangement of inter se seniority. The basis under which the lists are being prepared by the department and against which the petitioners have a grievance are certain judgments and we shall refer to the same in brief hereafter.

(3.) In 1981 S/Shri P. N. Lal (recruitted in the 1966 batch) and Brij Mohan (recruited in the 1965 batch) who had qualified in the qualifying examination held in 1974 filed two writ petitions in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court complaining of their placement in the eligibility list below the last man who passed the qualifying examination in 1975. The case of the department was that the eligibility list had been arranged on the basis of the seniority, based on the year of recruitment ignoring the year of passing the qualifying departmental examination. The High Court considered the rules of 1966 as also the rules of 1981 and para 206 of the P and T Manual and came to conclusion that those who qualified in the departmental examination earlier were entitled to be promoted prior to those who qualified later irrespective of the year of their initial recruitment. The High Court noticed that para 206 of the P and T Manual was in existence when the rules of 1966 and 1981 came into force and held that para 206 was not in conflict with either the rules of 1961 or 1981 but was supplemental to those rules. Relief was accordingly granted to the writ petitioners based on the interpretation of the Rules and Para 206 of the P and T Manual.