JAGBIR SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner claims various directions, essentially in the nature of policy realm, in respect of the service in the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).

(2.) The brief facts are that the petitioner was appointed as Assistant Commandant (AC) on 13.07.1989, a Junior Time Scale post in the CISF. In accordance with the recruitment rules, he became eligible for the post of Commandant after 6 years and was, in fact, promoted with effect from 20.07.1995. He approached this Court in 1997. At that stage, the complaint was that the post of AC, though a Group-A service, for which a common entrance examination is held by the Central Government and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC); in certain important employment and service related aspects, the conditions differed and the employees of CISF are discriminated. At the outset, learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that with the passage of time, some of the reliefs claimed have become academic and that he would focus on the following subsisting grievances:

(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner relied upon various Circulars of the Central Government as well as the Cadre Management of Group-A Central Services Monograph of 1993. It was submitted that once the Central Government had grouped the CISF personnel from Assistant Commandant rank upwards as belonging to the "Group-A" service, all benefits of employment akin to other Group-A services automatically had to be extended to him. Therefore, it was argued that the time-bound manner in which various pay scales and pay bands are extended to members of other Group-A services, such as Senior Time Sale, Junior Administrative Grade, Selection Grade and Senior Administrative Grade have to be necessarily extended to the personnel of equivalent rank in the CISF. Learned counsel stressed on the process of recruitment whereby the post of AC in the CISF is classified with other services, including the All India Services (AIS).