This Court set aside the Tribunal directions granting additional time to hold a Review DPC. The Court held that the Tribunal erred in not adjudicating wilful disobedience of a final order and instead condoning the delay.
Directions in Para 10 of the Tribunal's order dated 09.12.2019 set aside; liberty granted to respondent to revive contempt petition.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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SH. SHISHIR DUTT .....Respondent Through: Mr. Abhishek Chauhan and Mr. Ajit Kumar Ekka, Advocates.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SURESH KUMAR KAIT HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE GIRISH KATHPALIA
J U D G M E N T (oral)
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for the period 01.04.2014 to 09.09.2014. However, since the Review Officer, who happens to be the General Manager had retired in November, he made representation to the Reporting Officer to process his APAR for appraisal and also sent reminder dated 29.10.2014 in respect thereof. However, he was informed that his APAR was misplaced and he was required to furnish another APAR. In such circumstances, his APAR was dealt with by the Reporting Officer who graded him as “Good”.
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performance for earlier four years had been outstanding, but she was not considered for promotion. The respondent, thus, prayed the learned Tribunal to set aside the DPC convened in April, 2017 and to quash the promotion order issued to his juniors and to place him above respondents No.7 to 14 in the seniority list.
“16. Even where the APAR could not be handled by the two out of the three officers, namely. Reporting, Reviewing and Accepting Officers, the safest course is to treat the period as Non-AFAR. The DPC-did not address the issue from that angle also. Quite a large number of juniors of the applicant were empanelled and were thereafter appointed as DRM.
17. In terms of emoluments and rank, the applicant cannot be made to suffer a detriment. For the service rendered by him spread over three decades, which is uniformly rated as meritorious, he cannot be rewarded with denial of a post which he is otherwise entitled to, and as regards which, he has a legitimate expectation.
19, in view of the above, we allow the OA and set aside the minutes of DPC dated 04.07.2017. insofar as it concerns the applicant. We direct that the review DPC shall be constituted to consider the case of the applicant and which, in turn, shall treat the APAR for first part of the year
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2014- 15 as non est If the applicant is declared as fit by the Review DPC, he shall be entitled to the consequential benefits, including seniority. This exercise shall be done within a period of three months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. There shall be no order as to costs.”
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“7. Strictly speaking, the declaration could have been given by the Tribunal to the effect that the applicant became fit for promotion, once the concerned APAR was declared as non est. However, out of sheer respect to the Review DPC and the law involved, as declared by the Hon‟ble Supreme Court, that the Tribunal and Court could not declare a particular state of affairs which are clearly in the purview of an authority, such as DPC and Review DPC, it was directed that the matter can be considered by the Review DPC. In the context of extending the consequential benefits, we observed as under:-
“If the applicant is declared as fit by the Review DPC, he shall be entitled to the consequential benefits, including seniority”.
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8. It is unfortunate that a Review DPC, which comprises of highly placed officers, has read something else into the word „if‟, and that has defeated the whole purpose underlying the order in the O.A. Once the Tribunal has restricted the exercise of the Review DPC, it was expected just to examine the case without referring to the first part of the APAR of the year 2014-15. However, it has chosen to invent new reasons.
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10. We are of the view that the decision taken by the Review DPC is clearly violative of the orders passed in the OA, as affirmed by the Hon'ble High Court. Though one of the options is to pass order in the Contempt itself, we feel it appropriate to give another opportunity to the Review DPC to consider the case of the applicant, by excluding from its consideration the first part of the APAR for the year 2014-15; and not to take any factor, other than one, which was taken note of by the original DPC. This exercise shall be completed within two weeks from today.”
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not recommend his inclusion in the DRM‟s short list.
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liberty to the respondent herein to revive the contempt petition before the learned Tribunal, challenging non-compliance of the judgment dated 08.01.2019 passed by the learned Tribunal.
SURESH KUMAR KAIT, J
GIRISH KATHPALIA, J
SEPTEMBER 9, 2024 MR /r
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3 issues framed by the court
Whether the Tribunal erred in granting further time to petitioners to comply with its earlier final order in contempt proceedings.
Whether the Tribunal correctly proceeded to adjudge wilful disobedience instead of condoning the delay in compliance.
Whether the directions to hold a fresh Review DPC within two weeks should be set aside.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.
SH. SHISHIR DUTT
SURESH KUMAR KAIT
GIRISH KATHPALIA
As recorded by the court registry
A petition under Article 226 of the Constitution asking a High Court to issue a writ against the State or a public authority in a civil matter.
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
