UNION OF INDIA Vs. BACHITAR SINGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE brief facts necessary for an adjudication of this writ petition are of the respondent on 17.8.1970 having been appointed as Valveman by the petitioner department. On 15.10.1984, the respondent was designated as Fitter Pipe HS -II. With effect from 1.1.1996, the respondent was designated as High skilled on the basis of his seniority list. On 20.5.2003, the respondent was promoted as Master Craftsman in the grade of Rs. 4500 -7000. On 12.5.2008, OA No. 300/HP/2008 was filed before the learned Central Administrative Tribunal, Bench at Chandigarh by the respondent claiming therein the grant of 2nd ACP in the scale of Rs. 5000 -8000 w.e.f. 17.8.1994 when he completed his 24 years of service along with interest at the rate of 18% per annum. On 23.8.2010, the learned Central Administrative Tribunal allowed the OA No. 300/HP/2008 holding the respondent entitled to the grant of 2nd ACP w.e.f. 9.8.1999 in the scale of Rs. 5000 -8000 and further directed the petitioner department to fix his pay in the said scale and grant consequential arrears within a period of three months from the date of receipt of the copy of order.

(2.) THIS court would be constrained to allow the instant petition and consequently quash the impugned order rendered on 23.8.2010 by the Central Administrative Tribunal in O.A. No. 300/HP/2008, in case, it is convincingly established by the petitioner department that the order rendered by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal suffers from an infirmity comprised in it having taken into consideration excludable material or it having excluded from consideration includable material or also in case, it is persuasively established before this Court that the learned Central Administrative Tribunal has mis -applied the rules and norms to the facts at hand. While applying the above touch stone for determining the tenability of the findings recorded by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal in its impugned order, it appears that the learned Central Administrative Tribunal had qua the respondent rendered a determination in his favour on the strength of his having completed 24 years of service on 17.8.1994 computable from the date of his having joined services under the petitioner department in the year 1970. Consequently, when the grant of ACP by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal in its impugned order has not been demonstrated by the petitioner department to be not grantable or not affordable to him on completion by him of 20 years of service, consequently, the allowing of relief by the learned Central Administrative Tribunal in favour of the petitioner cannot be said to be anvilled upon misapplication of norms or rules apposite to the facts at hand. In sequel, it cannot be said that the learned Administrative Tribunal in its impugned order has either excluded from consideration germane material or included the excludable material, hence, arrived at erroneous findings. Rather, the fact of similarly situated persons as the respondent having been held by the Hon'ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana in its judgment in CWP No. 6657 of 2008, Union of India and others versus Sher Chand and another, decided on 20th May, 2014, copy whereof exists on record, to be entitled to the relief pari materia, to the one afforded to the respondent. In aftermath, when the findings and conclusions arrived by the Hon'ble High Court of Punjab and Haryana in its decision aforesaid have not been demonstrated to have been assailed before the Hon'ble Apex Court so as to deprive it of its sanctity or conclusiveness, as a natural consequence then it acquires binding force and ought to be revered by this Court especially when it is based on or anvilled upon tenable findings on apposite application of apposite norms as also upon an appropriate appreciation of the material on record.

(3.) THE pending application(s), if any, also stand disposed of.