GS Vs. THE UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. D. Borah, learned counsel for the wit petitioners. Also heard Mr. S.C. Keyal, learned Assistant Solicitor General of India as well as Mr. Y. Doloi, learned Central Govt. Counsel, appearing on behalf of all the respondents.

(2.) Since a common question of law arises in this batch of writ petitions, hence, I propose to dispose of the same by this common judgment.

(3.) The writ petitioners, numbering 31 in total, are all working as Stenographer-B/Lower Division Clerk (LDC) in the Border Roads Organization (BRO) in its unit commonly known as General Reserve Engineering Force (GREF). The petitioners are presently posted at Tezpur, Assam . The posts held by the writ petitioners are in the Grade- III category of service under the respondents. On 24.10.2016 the Commissioner, Coal Mines Provident Fund Organization had issued circular inviting applications for filling up a number of posts in the category of Stenographer Grade-III/Lower Division Clerk/Hindi Typist by way of transfer of service from other departments. As per clause- 2 of the circular dated 24.10.2016, the names of the officials who are willing to join that office on transfer of service basis and who could be spared by their department were required to be sent along with their Bio-data in the enclosed Format with an attested copy of ACR for last five years, current Vigilance Clearance Certificate and No Objection Certificate (NOC) issued by their employer. Accordingly, some of the petitioners had applied before the respondents seeking vigilance clearance certificate and also No Objection Certificate (NOC) so as to enable them to join the Coal Mines Provident Fund Organization as per the circular dated 24.10.2016 but the request made by some of the petitioners have been turned down by the respondents on the ground that there was deficiency of staff in the organization and the petitioners had not put in 20 years of service so as to enable them to seek outside employment as per the policy decision notified by the circular dated 01.08.2016. Being aggrieved by such stand adopted by the respondents , these writ petitions have been filed, inter alia, seeking a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to issue the Vigilance Clearance Certificate and NOC in favour of the petitioners.