KAMALENDU HALDER Vs. UNION OF INDIA & ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Airport Health Officer, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Dumdum, Kolkata had initiated a recruitment process sometime in 1998 to fill up vacant posts of field workers/fumigation workers in the Airport Health Organization. The candidates sponsored by the local employment exchange were duly called upon to participate in the process of selection whereupon a panel was prepared. Appointment letters were issued in favour of the empanelled candidates which, inter alia, included Kamalendu Halder (the petitioner herein), Somnath Naskar (hereafter Somnath), Biswajit Sarkar (hereafter Biswajit), Monish Aich (hereafter Monish), Prolay Chakraborty (hereafter Prolay), Gopal Debnath (hereafter Gopal), etc. On the strength of appointment letters issued in favour of the aforesaid candidates, they had reported before the airport health officer for joining. However, by an order dated December 4, 1998, the offers of appointment were sought to be cancelled.

(2.) The said appointees came to learn that one Dr. S.S. Sardar (hereafter Dr. Sardar) had been in charge of the process of selection. It was also learnt that Dr. Sarkar had indulged in nepotism, for which the selection process was considered to have been vitiated and the said appointees denied joining. However, since there was no order issued by the Director General of Health Service, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India instructing cancellation of the offers of appointment but the director general had only instructed that the process of appointment should be kept in abeyance, Kamalendu Halder (hereafter Kamalendu), Somnath, Biswajit, Monish, Prolay and Gopal perceived the action of the airport health officer in seeking to cancel the offers of appointment as illegal and arbitrary. Accordingly, they jointly moved the Central Administrative Tribunal, Calcutta Bench by presenting O.A. 1504 of 1999. The tribunal allowed the original application by its judgment and order dated January 20, 2000 and quashed the order of cancellation dated December 4, 1998. The respondents were directed to consider the case of the applicants for issuance of letters of appointment after obtaining medical fitness certificate and verifying their antecedents, within a period of 3 (three) months from the date of communication of the order.

(3.) The respondents in O.A. 1504 of 1999 challenged the said judgment and order of the tribunal before this Court by presenting a writ petition, registered as W.P.C.T. 94 of 2000. A coordinate Bench, for the reasons assigned in its judgment and order dated August 2, 2000, allowed the writ petition. The impugned judgment and order of the tribunal, accordingly, stood set aside. The materials before us do not reveal that the judgment and order passed on August 2, 2000 was challenged before the Supreme Court.