LALIT KUMAR AND OTHERS Vs. UOI AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are aggrieved by the dismissal of a joint petition filed by them and fourteen others before the Central Administrative Tribunal(hereinafter referred as 'the Tribunal'), which was dismissed vide judgment dated 27.11.2001.

(2.) The factual matrix of the case is as follows. The petitioners herein were directly recruited in Grade IV of the Indian Economic Service (in short, 'IES') in the year 1995-96. Aggrieved by the office order dated 20.11.1997 issued by the IES Division, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, posting/transferring Grade IV officers of IES in the order of their seniority to different Departments with immediate effect and notionally, as per column 4 of the said order, the petitioners had approached the Tribunal raising a grievance that 90 promotee officers to Grade IV of the IES had been wrongly placed above the petitioners in seniority, by granting them an antedated deemed seniority.

(3.) The Indian Economic Service Rules, 1961 (hereinafter referred to as 'the Rules') that have been framed under Article 309 of the Constitution of India, governs the IES cadre. Rule 8(1)(a) of the Rules prescribes recruitment to Grade IV of IES from two streams, 60% through direct recruitment and 40% through promotion from amongst the feeder cadre. The petitioners herein are direct recruits whereas the private respondents No.2 to 55 are promotes from the feeder cadre. Direct recruitments were being made to the IES cadre ever since the year 1968. However, the promotee quota was not filled up for a very long time. As a result, the aggrieved employees, who were promotes, moved the court claiming entitlement to be promoted to Grade IV on the ground that they had been officiating on a continuous ad hoc basis for a long time, but had not been regularized in the said Grade IV. Vide judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in the case of Narendra Chadha v. Union of India, reported as AIR 1986 SC 638 , the said promotees were regularized in Grade IV of the IES. Subsequently, in the case of B.S. Kapila v. Union of India , other similarly placed officers, who were also officiating against posts in Grade IV of the IES, had moved the Court and were given similar relief.