JUDGMENT
Binod Kumar Roy and S. K. Jain, JJ.
1. The petitioner, who is a Scheduled Caste and thus borrowing the expression used by the Supreme Court “a zealous child of the Constitution”, has come up with a prayer to quash the order dated 22nd March, 1994 of the State Government, as contained In letter No. 674/6-3/5-6(75)/91 of the Joint Secretary, Government of Uttar Pradesh sent to the Director, Medfcat Health and Family Welfare, Uttar Pradesh. Medical Department-III, Lucknow (copy appended as Annexure-8) rejecting his representation dated 5th September, 1992 in relation to grant of special grade to him with effect from 1st August. 1985 on following grounds :
(i) His name was included in the selection list in relation to promotion to the post of special grade on 6th July, 1985 and 1st August, 1985.
(ii) This apart on 28th May. 1986 there was a meeting of the selection committee in which his name was considered but the committee found him unfit for promotion in the selection grade.
(iii) So far as the question of promoting Dr. Anurag Rajak. Dr. M. L. Khatlelya, Dr. Raghunandan Prasad. Dr. L. B. Prasad, who were junior to him in the selection grade is concerned. It was done in compliance of the orders passed by the Public Service Tribunal in Claim Petition Nos. 117/11/87 and 160/11/86, which are not applicable to him.
The submissions :
2. Sri Arun Tandon, learned counsel appearing in support of this writ petition contended as follows :
(i) The Government has wrongly held that the decision of the U. P. Public Service Tribunal No. II was not applicable. The findings/observations made against the Government In the absence of their settlng-aslde was binding on the Government. In that case, the defence of the Government was that no separate list of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe candidates was prepared as the criteria of the selection was merit and only one list of eligible candidates (vide paragraph 9) was prepared and that the departmental promotion committee had made selection according to the rules and no illegality was committed. This defence was rejected by the Tribunal recording categorical findings that the question of merit was to be considered with reference to work and conduct of the eligible medical officers of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe community and their merit was not to be considered with reference to the merit of the general candidates (vide paragraph 15 of the Judgment) and that the Public Service Commission had considered persons upto such a serial number which Included no Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe officer. In fact after this the petitioner had filed his representation, which has been illegally rejected.
(ii) The unfortunate petitioner had to knock the doors of this Court repeatedly (a) When he was denied selection grade and he made a representation which was not being disposed of he filed a writ petition which was disposed of by an order dated 25.5.1993 with a direction to decide the same within six weeks of the receipt of a copy of that order (b) As still his representation was not decided he filed a petition
for initiation of proceeding in contempt in whtch notice was issued vide orders dated 6.1.1994 and dated 14.3.1994 and then he was informed vide order dated 24.3.1994 (Annexure-7) that having regard to completion of continuous 12 years and satisfactory service senior scale of Rs. 3700-5000 with effect from 1.1.1986 is being given and thereby the Government had admitted that he is fully eligible for grant of selection grade which has been completely ignored while adjudicating his representation.
3. Mrs. Sarita Stngh, learned standing counsel, on the other hand contended that the claim of the petitioner, as it is evident from paragraph 2 of the impugned order, was considered by the selection committee which did not found him fit for special grade and valid reasons have been given by the Government and consequently there is no merit in this writ petition.
OUR FINDINGS :
4. Unfortunately, the
respondents have not taken care to
rebut the relevant allegations made in
the writ petition by filing any counter.
5. The judgment of the Tribunal, relied upon by the petitioner, was binding on the Government which was admittedly a party to the proceeding before the Tribunal. The Tribunal had recorded on express finding that the merit of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe candidates was not to be considered vis-a-vis with those belonging to the general category. This has been significantly lost sight of by the Government.
6. For the reason
aforementioned, we are of the view
with the decision taken in relation to
the petitioner vide the impugned
communication (as contained in
Annexure-8) is vitiated and the matter
requires reconsideration by the
Government once again.
7. Consequently, we set-aside the impugned communication and remit back the matter to the Government for a redecision by assigning reasons within 90 days from the date of the receipt of a copy of this judgment.
8. This writ petition is disposed of accordingly without cost.
9. The office is directed to handover a copy of this judgment within two weeks to Smt. Sarita Singh, learned standing counsel, for its intimation to and follow action by the State Government.