S L SONI Vs. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) This appeal arises against the order of the M. P. Admn. Tribunal, Bhopal Bench in Transferred Application No. 1794/88 dated 5-3-1993. The only question in this appeal is whether the claim for promotion as Assistant Forest Conservator was considered in accordance with Rules. We have called for and perused the record. A High Level Committee, consisting of a Member of the Public Service Commission as Chairman, Secretary to the Government, forest Department and Principal Chief Conservator of Forests as members, was constituted to consider the claims of all eligible persons for promotion as Assistant Conservator of Forest. The criteria adopted by the Committee was in accordance with the M. P. Forest Service (recruitment) Rules, 1977, (for Short, 'the Rules'). The zone of consideration was five times the number of vacancies. Thereby there was wide chance for many to be considered. Only officers with a minimum of 8 years of service and confirmed in the cadre of Ranger were considered. The selection was based on merits with due regard to seniority. The merit was assessed on the basis of recorded annual confidential reports of the officers for the previous five years to the year of consideration. The yardstick of merit adopted was that average assessment of last five years C. Rs. should be above "good". Integrity should be beyond doubt. In the case of officer against whom departmental enquiry was in progress, assessment was made without prejudice to the result of the said enquiry which was placed in a sealed cover to be opened after the departmental enquiry proceedings are completed.

(3.) Based thereon, the claims were considered and initially the appellant was not found fit for promotion and was rejected. The Tribunal, after examination of the matter, gave the following direction: