UOI Vs. RAJESH KUMAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Our apology for deciding the four captioned writ petitions by a common judgment and order is that same counsel appear for the contesting parties and that the respondents in all the writ petitions who have succeeded before the Central Administrative Tribunal were some what similarly situate inasmuch as all of them were engaged as Mobile Booking Clerks under a scheme of the Railway Board promulgated in the year 1973; the object whereof was to give employment to the wards of railway employees by requiring them to render assistance at the railway stations when extra work was needed and help the regular staff in booking/reservations and passenger traffic. An assurance was held to them of being regularly absorbed after three years. The scheme was withdrawn on 17.11.1986 which was challenged before the Central Administrative Tribunal which granted relief; requiring the services of the disengaged Mobile Booking Clerks to be re-engaged. The decision of the Tribunal was upheld by the Supreme Court.

(2.) It is the claim of the four respondents in the four writ petitions that Rajesh Kumar was engaged as a Mobile Booking Clerk on 17.2.1984, R.P.Chauhan on 28.4.1983, S.C.Verma on 2.11.1983 and D.D.Pandey on 17.2.1984. Since the railways lost the battle pertaining to the railway board circular dated 17.11.1986 in the Supreme Court, on 6.2.1990 the Railway Board issued a general order directing that all those who had worked prior to 17.11.1986 under the Railway Board Scheme of 1973 should be re-engaged and on completing 3 years' service should be regularized as Clerks. Accordingly, on different dates in the month of April 1991 the four respondents were re-engaged as Mobile Booking Clerks. This was done pursuant to the respondents submitting certificates issued by the respective competent authority at the railway station where they claimed to have worked as Mobile Booking Clerks when their services were disengaged.

(3.) Immediately thereafter, on different dates, but in the year 1993, charge-sheets were issued to the four respondents alleging that the work certificate submitted by them when they were re-inducted in service was a forged and a fabricated document. The said charge-sheets were withdrawn on some technical grounds by the railway authorities soon after they were issued; the withdrawal being in the year 1993 itself.