G.A.RAMA RAO Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner is working as Assistant Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise at Hyderabad. The relevant service rules provide for financial upgradation (for short 'upgradation'), in lieu of promotion, depending on the facts and circumstances. The petitioner was extended two upgradations and he became due for the third upgradation in 2011. The eligibility of an Assistant Commissioner to be extended the benefit of upgradation is assessed by the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) by undertaking an exercise, akin to the one for promotion. The DPC which met on 21.12.2011 found the petitioner eligible for being extended the benefit of third upgradation.

(2.) Before an order extending the benefit of upgradation came to be passed by the appointing authority, a charge memo was issued to the petitioner on 27.12.2011 framing certain charges referable to his functioning in the year 2002 at Sadasivapet. Taking the same into account, the respondents did not extend the benefit of upgradation.

(3.) The petitioner filed O.A.No.1457 of 2012 before the Hyderabad Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal feeling aggrieved by the action of the respondents. He pleaded that once the DPC has cleared his case, there was no basis for the respondents to withhold the benefit of upgradation.