UNION OF INDIA Vs. KULWANT SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This writ petition challenges the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi dated 27th November, 2001. The applicants before the Central Administrative Tribunal and the respondents herein, had claimed parity with the applicants in O.A.133/1991 before The Lucknow Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal which directed the respondents to upgrade the posts of Material Checkers held up the applicants before it to the higher grade of Material Checking Clerks. The said order of the Lucknow Bench had been appealed against before the Hon'ble Supreme Court and the Supreme Court had dismissed the Special Leave Petition and thus the order of the Lucknow Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal became final.

(2.) The foundation of the pleas of the respondents was that the respondents i.e. the applicants before the Central Administrative Tribunal, New Delhi and the applicants in O.A.133/91 before the Lucknow Bench were placed in the same seniority list of Material Checkers. It is also contended that while the Judgment of the Lucknow Bench has been complied with, but it has been restricted only to the applicants before the Lucknow Bench of the CAT and the benefit thereof has been denied to the applicants before the CAT, New Delhi, who were similarly situated to the applicants before the Lucknow Bench. It is thus contended that since the judgment of the Lucknow Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal was upheld by the Supreme Court, consequently the issue involved in that case cannot he re-opened. The petitioner took a stand that the order of the Lucknow Bench was not binding as certain orders of the Railway Board has been ignored and the dismissal of the S.L.P. by the Supreme Court did not make It law under Article 141 of the Constitution of India. Consequently the order affirmed by the Supreme Court was decided to be implemented only for those persons who had filed the O.A. before the Lucknow Bench and none else.

(3.) The Tribunal by its impugned judgment found that it was not even the case of the respondent that the applicants were not placed in the same seniority list as those before the Lucknow Bench. In fact some of the respondents herein were shown as senior to the applicants before the Lucknow Bench. The Tribunal relied upon the judgment of the Lucknow Bench and held as under:-