UNION OF INDIA Vs. SABEENA VARGHESE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Union of India is before us, challenging the order of the Tribunal which directed the respondent-applicant to be granted her promotion as Upper Division Clerk ["UDC" for short] and the further consideration of the promotion as Assistant, reckoning her past service in the organization.

(2.) The respondent-applicant was appointed as a Lower Division Clerk ["LDC" for short] in the Defense Security Corps ["DSC" for short] on 20.08.1997 at Thambaram, Chennai. She was promoted as UDC on 21.02.2006. In the year 2007, she sought for a compassionate transfer to Kochi, which is a different unit with respect to the seniority of employees. In accordance with the willingness, for forfeiture of past service submitted by her as also the existing rules, she was placed junior-most at Kochi in the post of LDC, she being obliged to give up her promoted status, on being granted the compassionate transfer. In Kochi though she was reduced in rank, her pay was protected minus her Grade Pay. Later on 01.10.2011, she along with another sought for a mutual transfer. The same was also granted by the DSC, again on the very same terms as applied to her transfer from Thambaram to Kochi; Kochi and Trivandrum again being separate units for the purpose of seniority.

(3.) The learned Assistant Solicitor General of India submits that as per the extant Rules, on the basis of which compassionate transfer was granted, a person so moving out of a unit would not only forsake seniority and be adjusted as the junior-most in the grade in the transferred unit; but also forfeit their past service for the purpose of consideration of promotion. As far as Modified Assured Career Progression ["MACP" for short] Scheme, she has already been granted the same. Annexure R1(e), produced along with the reply statement filed by the respondents makes it abundantly clear that having forfeited her service in the earlier units, she cannot turn around and claim promotion based on the long service. It is also contended that her claim for promotion reckoning her past service could have been claimed immediately after joining the post at Kochi, which she never did. It was only by a Original Application of 2015 that the present claim was raised, by which time she would have been normally eligible for consideration for promotion to the post of UDC in Kochi; but for her mutual transfer to Trivandrum, again on her own option. The delay stands against her claim being allowed and it is also submitted that there are almost 84 seniors in the unit at Trivandrum, who would be affected by the directions in the order of the Tribunal who have not been impleaded in the O.A.