(Per : HONOURABLE MR.JUSTICE V. M. SAHAI) 1 We have heard Ms. Megha Jani, learned Advocate for the petitioner, Mr. P.H.Pathak, learned Advocate for respondent No.1 and Mrs. Vasavdatta Bhatt, learned Advocate for respondents No. 2, 3 and 4. Though respondents No. 5 and 6 have been served but they had not appeared.
2 The dispute in the present writ petition is with regard to the selection made by the Selection Committee for the post of “Personnel Inspector–Grade-III” in Western Railway. The Selection Committee was constituted for conducting the examination and making selection for promotion on the three existing vacancies in the general category of Personnel Inspector–Grade-III. Accordingly, the written examination for the aforesaid posts was held by the Selection Committee, in which seven candidates including the present petitioner were declared successful on 15.2.2006. Thereafter, the Selection Committee declared the final panel for promotion to the post of Personnel Inspector–Grade-III on the same day 15.2.2006, wherein the respondent No. 5 – P. Prabhakar Rao was placed at Sl. No. 1; the respondent No. 6 was placed at Sl. No.2 and the present petitioner Smt. Charulata R. Tidke @ Charulata Ramesh Tale was placed at Sl. No.3. It was further provided in the Memorandum dated 15.2.2006 that the promotion was provisional subject to the case pending before the Hon'ble Supreme Court. The respondent No.1 was not selected and, therefore, he filed an application, being Original Application No.511 of 2006 with Misc. Application No.495 of 2008, before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench, Ahmedabad, which had been decided by the learned Tribunal by its Order dated 31st August, 2009. The learned Tribunal allowed the O.A. Application and the selection of the petitioner as well as the respondents No. 5 and 6 have been set aside and the Tribunal further directed the General Manager to evolve suitable guidelines either general or specific, if need be, in consultation with the CPO and concerned official within three months with regard to the awarding of marks for personality, etc and Record of Service etc. This order of the Central Administrative Tribunal dated 31st August, 2009 has been challenged by the petitioner on the ground that the selection was made by the Selection Committee as per the procedure prescribed by Notification No.RBE-263/98 dated 16.11.1998. As per the said Notification, 50 marks for Written Test, 30 marks for Personality, address, leadership, academic/technical qualifications and 20 marks for Record of Service was fixed. It was provided that those candidates who obtain 60% marks, that is to say, 30 marks out of 50 marks, in the written examination were to be considered for promotion.
3 It is not in dispute that the petitioner as well as the respondents No.1, 5 and 6 had qualified in the written tests. So far as marks awarded for Record of Service is concerned, there is no dispute between the parties. The only dispute between the parties in the matter before the Tribunal was with regard to the marks awarded for personality, address, leadership, academic/ technical qualifications, etc, for which total 30 marks have been fixed. According to the learned Counsel for the petitioner, since there was no interview, out of 100 marks, 50 marks was fixed for written examination; 20 marks was fixed for record of service and 30 marks was fixed for personality, address leadership, academic/technical qualifications, etc. It is further submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that 30 marks, which was fixed for personality, address, leadership, academic/technical qualifications, etc. were to be awarded to the candidates on the basis of Annual Confidential Report (ACR). It is further submitted that the Annual Confidential Report was to be looked into because there was no other method by which marks could be awarded for personality, address leadership. The learned counsel has further submitted that what the Selection Committee has done is that it has awarded marks for academic qualifications i.e. (i) 5 marks for Graduates; (ii) 3 marks for Post Graduates (Science); (iii) 1 mark for other Post Graduate Degrees; (iv) 2 marks for Law Degree and (v) 1 mark for Diploma, making it a total of possible 12 marks. It is also submitted that the Selection Committee also awarded marks to the candidates under the merit award or the cash award.
Admittedly, neither the petitioner nor the respondents No.1 and 5 had any merit awards or cash awards in their favour. Only the respondent No.6 had merit award.
The learned counsel for the respondent Mr. P.H. Pathak has supported the order of the Tribunal.
4 Out of seven candidates, three candidates, namely Vijay Kumar Sinha and Mahesh Kumar the respondent No.6 had awards in their favour and they have been awarded 3 marks each. Except the aforesaid two candidates, no other candidates had any merit award or cash award in their favour. The Selection Committee after awarding marks for merit award or cash award and marks on the basis of the service record appears to have proceeded to award marks on the basis of personality, address, leadership. In the absence of any interview, it appears that the Selection Committee had decided to award the same marks for personality, address and leadership which was awarded to the candidates on the basis of the service records. By adopting this method, the results were declared by the Selection Committee. The present petitioner as well as respondents No. 5 and 6 were declared as provisionally successful. The marks awarded by the Selection Committee on 15.2.2006 is reproduced below:-
5 The respondent No.1 was not selected and, therefore, he has filed an application, being O.A. No.511 of 2006 with M.A. No.495 of 2008 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench at Ahmedabad. The Tribunal was of the opinion that the marks awarded on the basis of service record could not be counted twice. The learned Tribunal found that no separate marks was awarded for personality, address, leadership etc, and came to the conclusion that the selection was bad and, therefore, the learned Tribunal allowed the O.A. Application and the selection of the petitioner as well as the respondents No.5 and 6 have been set aside and direction had been issued to the General Manager to evolve suitable guidelines either general or specific, if need be, in consultation with the CPO and concerned Official within three months with regard to the awarding of marks for personality, address, leadership, etc and Record of service and thereafter to prepare a fresh select list and declare the results.
6. From the arguments advanced by the learned Counsel appearing for the parties, one thing is clear that, there was no interview nor any marks were allotted for interview. Therefore, the question is, what method could have been adopted by the Selection Committee for awarding marks for personality, address, leadership etc ?
7. Admittedly, there was no interview. The Selection Committee had no occasion to interview the candidates to find out their personality and to explore their address and leadership qualities. Notification No.RBE-263/98 dated 16.11.1998 laid down the Selection Rules framed by the Railways but it did not provide for any interview. If the guideline had been provided by the Railways and a policy decision had been taken prescribing a particular mode of selection, it has to be given strict adherence. There would have been no difficulty if interview or viva examination was prescribed by the Railways to find out the personality, address and leadership qualities of a candidate because the object of interview or viva voice examination are to assess the candidates' personality, intelligence, address, general knowledge, leadership and suitability to a post. But the Railways did not provide for any interview. The Selection Committee decided to hold this selection as per the Notification of the Railway administration which provided the procedure according to which selection was to be made for the post of Personal Inspector-Grade-III. It required the Selection Committee to take written examination of 50 marks and only those candidates who secured 60% marks in written examination were to be considered eligible for promotion. The other head personality, address, leadership, academic / technical qualifications were of 30 marks and 20 marks was fixed for the service records. So far as 20 marks for service records were concerned, was to be awarded on the basis of Annual Confidential Report. The Railway filed its reply before the Tribunal. In paragraph 5, it was stated that maximum 10 marks was fixed for academic and technical qualification. It is further stated that marks under the heads personality, address and leadership may have been allotted to the candidates as under :-
In absence of interview, the Selection Committee felt difficulty in awarding marks for personality, address and leadership. The Committee decided to award the same marks which the candidate has received for service record, for personality, address and interview, as the ability of a person who is in service can be better judged by his past performance in the department. In the matter of promotion in the Railway department, importance has to be given to the record of service. Learned counsel for the respondent No.1 Mr. P.H. Pathak vehemently supported the judgment of the Tribunal on the ground that the Selection Committee was required to split the marks under different heads, namely, personality, address, leadership, academic / technical qualifications. It is not in dispute that for academic / technical qualifications, marks have been awarded by the Committee by fixing a criteria. Similarly, marks for merit award has also been fixed. Only the marks for personality, address and leadership was not fixed by the Selection Committee under different heads as there was no interview and the Committee had no occasion to find out the personality, address and leadership qualities of a candidate. Therefore, they relied on the past performance of the candidates which was mentioned in the service records. Entire service record of petitioner and respondent No.1 was produced before us by the counsel for the railways. Even Annual Confidential Reports have been produced before us. In the Annual Confidential Reports, there is no column which prescribes the authority to mention about the personality, address and leadership of an employee. The argument of learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.1, upheld by the Tribunal, that the marks should have been split under these heads cannot be accepted as the norms fixed by the Railways in Notification No.RBE-263/98 dated 16.11.1998 did not permit the Selection Committee to split the marks under the aforesaid head. If the Rules for selection did not require that separate marks should be allotted under each head, then the Selection Committee could not allot marks under separate heads and norms which had been laid down for Selection Committee by the Railway administration was required to be followed. It was not open to the Tribunal to suggest that separate marks should be awarded under different heads as it will amount to laying down a new selection procedure which the Railway administration never intended. The Tribunal has not recorded any finding that there was any arbitrariness in awarding marks for personality, address, leadership on the basis of service records or there was any play of bias in awarding marks. In absence of any interview, the Selection Committee was justified in twice awarding the marks on the basis of service records (i) under the head of service record for which 20 marks were fixed and (ii) for personality, address and leadership, academic / technical qualifications for which 30 marks were fixed. There was no flaw in the selection process and the Selection Committee only complied with the Rules governing the selection and in such compliance, the Selection Committee had not caused any prejudice to any candidate. Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that the Tribunal did not commit any error of law in not splitting the marks for personality, address and leadership under separate heads and the order passed by the Tribunal was illegal.
8. The only method which could be evolved by the Selection Committee was to award marks on the basis of academic qualifications/technical qualifications and thereafter judge the personality, address and leadership of the each candidates on the basis of their service records and to see that none of the candidates are being prejudiced. The Selection Committee, therefore, evolved a uniform method by awarding the same marks for personality, address, leadership etc. which the candidates have secured in their service records. By adding the marks of service record of the candidates once again under the head of personality, address, leadership etc. and further added marks for academic qualifications/ technical qualifications and thereafter completed the award of marks and the selection process. The reason assigned by the learned Tribunal that the marks awarded in the service record of the candidates could not be added again for personality, address and leadership was not correct. In the facts and circumstances of the case, this was the only just and reasonable method, which could have been evolved by the Selection Committee.
9. The policy of selection was framed by the respondents authorities by Notification No. RBE-263/98 dated 16.11.1998 which was referred to by the Tribunal in Paragraph 11(a) of its judgment. It is relevant to mention at this stage that the Tribunal had held that selection had to be made on the basis of the notification. The policy decision was taken by the Railway authorities for holding selection for promotion, which could not have been interfered with by the Tribunal, unless, the selection was held to be arbitrary. As stated earlier, that the marks awarded in the service record of the candidates were added again for finding out the marks under the heads of personality, address, leadership and the same marks recorded in the service records was awarded to all the candidates, no prejudice was caused to the respondent No.1. In our opinion, the learned Tribunal has committed error in directing the Railway Authorities to fix the marks for personality, address and leadership which was not in the domain of the Tribunal as the selection was made as per the procedure prescribed by Notification No.RBE-263/98 dated 16.11.1998, we do not find any illegality in the impugned selection made by the Selection Committee and, therefore, no interference was called for by the Tribunal in the policy decision taken by the Railway. In view of the aforesaid facts and circumstances, the judgment dated 31.8.2009 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench, Ahmedabad, in O.A. No. 511 of 2006 with M.A. No. 495 of 2008 deserves to be quashed.
10. In the result, this writ petition succeeds and is allowed.
The judgment dated 31.8.2009 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ahmedabad Bench, Ahmedabad, in O.A. No. 511 of 2006 with M.A. No. 495 of 2008 is quashed. Rule made absolute. Parties shall bear their own costs.
(V.M. SAHAI, J.) (A.J. DESAI,J.) pnnair