BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD Vs. NEERAJ JAIN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) UNDER BSNL the post of Telecom Technical Assistant (TTA) is a post in the non-executive cadre. In the Executive cadre the hierarchy of posts is : Junior Technical Officer (JTO) > Sub Divisonal Engineer (SDE) Senior Sub Divisional Engineer, all of which are posts in the Executive cadre. The next above cadre is the Management cadre and the entry level post in Grade E-3 is that of Management Trainee.

(2.) THUS , we highlight that at the lowest rung of the cadres is the cadre of non-executives. Above is the cadre of Executives. Further above is the cadre of Management Trainees.

(3.) THE posts of Management Trainees were enhanced to 600. Simultaneously an exercise was initiated to either amend or bring into force new Management Trainee Recruitment Rules. On November 17, 2008 an advertisement was issued inviting applications to fill up the vacancy of the 300 posts of Management Trainees in the External Quota and on November 28, 2008 an advertisement was issued to fill up the vacancy of the 300 posts of Management Trainees in the Internal Quota. Representations were received from the officers in the Executive Cadre referring to certain assurances made to limit promotions in the Internal Quota to only officers in the Executive Cadre i.e. to exclude Telecom Technical Assistants who were in the non-executive cadre and simultaneously amend the Rules to permit all internal candidates including Telecom Technical Assistants to compete against the external quota by granting age relaxation to the internal candidates. Thus, the selection process through the open competitive examination for the external quota and the internal limited departmental examination for the internal quota were deferred and on September 01, 2009 'BSNL Management Trainee' Recruitment Rules 2009 were issued notifying 600 posts of Management Trainees with 50% in the external quota and 50% in the internal quota. Pertaining to the external quota age relaxation for departmental candidates was provided for. For internal candidates only officers in the Executive cadre i.e. Junior Technical Officers and above were made eligible. Fresh advertisements were issued inviting applications from the internal candidates to take the limited internal competitive examination. The result was a large number of Graduate Engineers working as Telecom Technical Assistants approaching the Central Administrative Tribunal under various Original Applications, all of which have been decided by a common order dated July 28, 2010 which has been challenged in the captioned eight writ petitions.