UNION OF INDIA Vs. MUKESH KUMAR JHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Whether members of General Reserve Engineer Force, commonly known as GREF and which is involved in construction, making and maintenance of roads, in the boarder areas, can be regarded as members of Armed Forces? Can the members of GREF be regarded as persons subject to the Army Act, 1950? Whether a member of the GREF can seek a relief, which a person is, otherwise, entitled to receive from the Central Administrative Tribunal constituted under the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985? Do the members of GREF fall, for all intents and purposes, within the ambit of Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007? Can a person, as a member of GREF, invoke extra -ordinary jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 and/or Article 227 of the Constitution of India on a subject, which is, otherwise, covered by Armed Forces Tribunal Act, 2007? These are some of the prominent questions, which the present writ petition has raised.

(2.) The material facts, leading to the present writ petition, made under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, may be set out as under:

(3.) Resisting, at the very threshold, the OA, so filed by the respondent herein as applicant, the present petitioners, as respondents in the OA, contended that the Central Administrative Tribunal had no jurisdiction to deal with grievances of the applicant -respondent herein inasmuch as all members of the GREF, for reasons of discipline, fall under the Ministry of Defence by virtue of notifications, issued in this regard by the Central Government by taking recourse to Section 4 of the Army Act, 1950, and the Army Rules, 1954, for the purpose of discipline of the members of the GREF, and they become, thus, members of the Armed Forces and, as a member of the Armed Forces, a member of the GREF cannot invoke the learned Central Admini -strative Tribunal's jurisdiction inasmuch as the learned Tribunal's jurisdiction stands barred by the provisions of Section 2(a) of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985.