2014 (3) TMI 405
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.... title and commencement (1) These rules may be called the Central Company Law Services Rules, 1965. (2) They shall come into force on the 1st day of October, 1965. (a) 'approved service' in relation to any grade means the period or periods of service in that grade, rendered after selection, according to prescribed procedure, for long term appointment to the grade, and includes any period or periods during which an officer would have held a duty post in that grade but for his being on leave or otherwise not being available for holding such a post and includes such weightage, if any, as may be given at their discretion by the Selection Committee referred to in rule 5 at the time of initial constitution of the Service. 6. Maintenance of the Service (i) After the initial constitution has been completed in accordance with rule 5, or as the case may be, after the initial appointments have been made under rule 5A, future vacancies shall be filled in the manner specified in sub-Rule (2). (2) Subject to the proviso to sub-rule (1)- &nbs....
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....nbsp; 6. Future maintenance of the Service (1) Any vacancy in any of the grades referred to in Schedule I, shall, after the initial constitution of the service as provided in rule 5, be filled in the manner specified in sub-rule (2). (2) (a) A duty post in Senior Administrative Grade shall be filled by promotion of a member of the service in the Junior Administrative Grade. ---------------- 8. Promotion (1) A person shall not ordinarily be eligible for promotion: (a) to a duty post in the Senior Administrative Grade (pay scale Rs. 5900-200-6700) unless he has completed eight years of approved service in a duty post in the Junior Administrative Grade (pay scale Rs. 3700-125-4700-150-5000); ...". (Emphasis Supplied) 8. A comparison of the CCLS Rules, 1965 with the CCLS Rules, 1997 goes to show that under CCLS Rules, 1965 an officer who had rendered 5 years' approved service in Grade-I was eligible to be considered for promotion to Super Time Grade the position under CCLS Rules, 1997 was that an off....
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.... the nature of a policy decision taken by the Government and that the Courts ordinarily do not interfere with a policy decision unless it is shown that said decision is mala-fide or extremely perverse; which the Tribunal claimed has not been shown to it. 14. On the issue of making promotions to the Senior Administrative Grade on the basis of eligibility criteria of having rendered eight years' approved service in the Grade-I prescribed in the CCLS Rules, 1997, the Tribunal held as under:- "8. Now the question to be resolved in these cases is whether for the purpose of promotion to the post of SAG, the respondents can insist eligibility criteria of eight years approved service which was the requirement in the recruitment rules of 25.4.1997, while the DPC for the post was held on 6.2.1997. It was stated in OA 428/97 that the recruitment rules prior to the new recruitment rules had stipulated the eligibility criteria of five years approved service, for the purpose of consideration for promotion to the post of SAG and the respondents have wrongly applied the criteria of 8 years approved service which came into operation only on 25.4.1997 and the said new recr....
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....hall be effective w.e.f. 1.1.1986. The seniority list will have to be amended as per this order and consider all persons who have been holding Grade-II as on 12.7.1990 shall be considered to have been holding the post of Grade-I w.e.f. 1.1.1986 or w.e.f. the date they joined the posts subsequently but prior to 12.7.1990. 10. Similarly, since by the order dated 12.7.1990, eleven posts of Grade-I to Grade-III have been down-graded and made effective from 1.1.1990 and the seniority list of those persons shall also be amended or revised accordingly. Since the issue at present is with regard to the seniority of those persons in Grade-I/JAG, the downgradation of eleven posts of Grade-I to Grade-III may not be relevant except for the purpose of excluding those officers from the seniority list of JAG/Grade-I, if found to be otherwise ineligible, since their posts have been downgraded to STC and they are no longer belonging to Grade-I w.e.f. 1.1.1990. Any mistake to this regard, shall also be made good by way of amendment or revision of the seniority list dated 12.11.1986 and the same shall be effected without any further delay. 11. The th....
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....in that:- (i) The department had committed an illegality in treating the officers working in Grade-II in CCLS on July 12, 1990 as having been appointed to the Junior Administrative Grade (Grade-I) with effect from January 01, 1986 even though they were appointed to Junior Administrative Grade (Grade-I) at a much later date; and (ii) The department committed an illegality in including the names of the officers who were working in Grade-II on July 12, 1990 in the zone of consideration for the vacancies which were sought to be filled up by the DPC held on May 19, 1998 for the reason as per CCLS Rules, 1965/1997 only such officers could be considered for promotion to the post of Senior Administrative Grade (Super Time Grade) who had rendered five/eight years approved service in the Junior Administrative Grade (Grade-I), which condition was not fulfilled in the case of such officers. The definition of 'approved service' as contained in the CCLS Rules, 1965/1997 implied that the officer concerned should have 'actually worked' in the Junior Administrative Grade (Grade-I), which is not the case with the officers who were working in Grade-....
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....ns which were urged before the Tribunal. 23. As evident from the aforesaid conspectus of facts, the problem in the instant case started with issuance of the Presidential order dated July 12, 1990 merging Grade-II with Grade-I with effect from January 01, 1986 i.e. retrospectively. 24. Then happened cadre review of CCLS on August 25, 1994 whereby the Super Time Grade, Grade-I, Grade-III and Grade-IV were re-designated as Senior Administrative Grade, Junior Administrative Grade, Senior Time Scale and Junior Time Scale respectively. 25. The aforesaid merger and cadre review of CCLS necessitated the amendment of CCLS Rules, 1965 however due to the lethargy of the Government the same were amended only on April 25, 1997 with the issuance of CCLS Rules, 1997. 26. CCLS Rules, 1997 brought about a significant change in the eligibility criteria prescribed for promotion to the post of Super Time Grade (re-designated as Senior Administrative Grade). Whereas under the CCLS Rules, 1965 an officer who had rendered five years approved service in the Junior Administrative Grade/Grade-I was eligible to be considered for promotion to Senior Administrative Grade the CCLS Rules, 1997 prescribed tha....
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....e date of appointment of the officers working in Grade-II on July 12, 1990 in the Junior Administrative Grade/Grade-I as January 01, 1986. 32. The petitioners sought to challenge the aforesaid provisional seniority list by making representations to the department but later withdrew the same. On January 28, 1998 the department finalized the aforesaid provisional seniority list. 33. Thereafter the department made promotions to the Senior Administrative Grade on the basis that the officers working in Grade-II on July 12, 1990 were 'deemed' to be appointed to Grade-I on January 01, 1986, which action was clearly in consonance with the directions contained in the judgment dated October 03, 1997 passed by the Tribunal. 34. In view of aforesaid emphatic and categorical direction given by the Tribunal in its judgment dated October 03, 1997 to the department to treat the date of appointment of the officers working in Grade-II on July 12, 1990 as January 01, 1986, it is not at all open to the petitioners to challenge the action of the department to effect promotions to the Senior Administrative Grade on the basis that the officers working in Grade-II on July 12, 1990 were 'deemed' to be a....
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....t years in the Junior Administrative Grade/Grade-I as sought to be projected by the learned counsel for the petitioner. 39. A somewhat comparable situation had arisen before a Division Bench of the Orissa High Court in the decision as Sribatsa Kumar Mohapatra v. State of Orissa [2007] 1 LLJ 214. The facts of the said case were that the petitioner in said case was appointed to the post of Junior Teacher/Lecturer on ad-hoc basis on June 08, 1984 and later regularized to said post on September 09, 1986. Thereafter the petitioner was allowed to accept an assignment on deputation under Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a period of five years. On January 17, 1992 DPC was held to consider the cases of eligible Junior Teachers/Lecturers to the post of Assistant Professor. After his selection by the DPC, the petitioner was appointed to the post of Assistant Professor. The respondents challenged the appointment of the petitioner to the post of Assistant Professor on the ground that the petitioner did not fulfill the eligibility condition relating to the 'teaching experience' prescribed in the Orissa Medical Education Service (Recruitment) Rules, 1979. The relevant portion of the Rules involved in....
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....hoc appointment. 17. Learned counsel for the opposite parties have further given stress that the period of deputation and unauthorized absence cannot be counted towards teaching experience - as the petitioner did not hold the teaching classes. In this regard, again the definition 'teaching experience' given in Rule 3(k) of the Rules, 1979 is liable to be perused. According to the said rule for the purpose of counting the teaching experience, the period of service rendered in a teaching post is to be reckoned from the date of appointment in a teaching institution recognized by the Indian Medical Council. The petitioner was given appointment on the recommendation of the OPSC in the year 1986 as mentioned above. By the order of Government the lien of the petitioner's service in the post of teacher remained to continue when he had been on deputation or on leave which was regularized later by the Government. Therefore, for all purposes, he shall be deemed to have rendered service in a teaching post of Junior Lecturer in the Medical Colleges recognized by the Indian Medical Council consequently. In the definition of 'teaching experience' it has been nowhere prov....