GOVERNMENT OF INDIA REPRESENTED BY THE UNDER SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE, NEW DELHI AND ANOTHER Vs. DR. RAGHUNATH SHARMA AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Mr. Venkatesh Kumar B.S., learned Counsel appears for the respondents and waives notice of Rule.

(2.) With the consent of learned Advocates appearing for both the sides, the petitions are finally decided.

(3.) The short facts of the case appear to be that the respondents were not considered as fit for promotion on account of not reaching the requisite benchmark in Annual Confidential Record (for short ACR) for the last five years. As per the respondents, when ACR grading was given, all the columns before reaching to the conclusion of grading were not filled up by the competent officer and only final grading was given. As the respondents were not found fit for the selection, they approached the Central Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as 'the Tribunal' for short) by preferring original application before the Tribunal. The Tribunal at the conclusion found that the consideration of benchmark on the basis of last five years ACR is not proper and the Tribunal also found that certain gradings were given in case of the respondents herein without filling up of the requisite columns by the competent authority in the ACR and therefore the Tribunal ultimately issued two fold directions. One is that the ACRs of both the applicants-respondents herein which were incomplete due to many columns being left blank should not be considered for promotion to the next higher grade by DPC and the DPC was directed to consider the case of the respondents-applicants after taking into account ACR of 2006-07 onward within the period of three months from the date of receipt of the copy of the order. The additional direction given by the Tribunal is that the Department of Personnel & Training (herein referred to as 'DOPT' for short) should review the existing instruction within a period of three months from the date of receipt of the order, in the light of the observations made by the Tribunal in its order. Under the circumstances the present petitions before this Court.