M. RAVINDRA RAO Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was appointed as Junior Engineer in Southern Railways (now South Western Railways) on 21.06.1990. On promotion, he was working as Senior Section Engineer. He was eligible for promotion to the post of Assistant Divisional Executive Engineer. A notification at Annexure-A was issued on 03.07.2012 for filling up the 19 posts which had fallen vacant in the cadre of Assistant Divisional Executive Engineer. Out of the 19 posts, 15 posts were un-reserved, 3 posts were reserved for Scheduled caste and one for the Scheduled Tribe category. The 2nd respondent issued a list of employees eligible to appear for the Grade-B selection (70% quota) for the post of ADEN/AXEN in the Civil Engineering Department. The petitioner was not included in the said list. His name was included in the stand-by list at Annexure-B (at Sl.No.13). A final eligibility list was issued by the 2nd respondent as per Annexure-D, dated 26.07.2012 and in this list his name was not included. Therefore, he filed O.A.No.491/2012 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore Bench, Bangalore, seeking the following reliefs:

(2.) The Tribunal has rejected the application by order dated 20.02.2013. Feeling aggrieved, the petitioner has filed this writ petition.

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that in terms of the Railway Boards letter No. E(GP)81/1/18 dated 10.09.1986, if the field constituted includes employees who had failed twice in the earlier selections, a corresponding number of additional employees should be called for the selection. In this connection, he draws our attention to letter issued by the Railway Ministry, Government of India, at Annexure-G dated 21.06.2012 and submits that the term "earlier selections" for this purpose is not restricted to the immediately preceding two selections only. All the three earlier selections have to be taken into consideration. The number of candidates who have failed twice in the earlier selections are about 13. The 2nd respondent has included only four candidates who had failed twice in the earlier two selections in the final eligibility list at Annexure-D instead of all the three previous selections in the year 2004, 2007 and 2010 in which event, the petitioner should have been included in the final eligibility list.