BHUPENDRA SHARMA Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners are respondents 6 to 8 in O.A.No.411 of 2017 filed before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Ernakulam Bench, by the 6th respondent herein. For the sake of convenience, the parties and the exhibits are referred to as in the original application.

(2.) The applicant, a Deputy General Manager in the Naval Armament Depot, had approached the Tribunal alleging refusal by the authorities to correct his seniority and to place him above respondents 6 to 8 in the seniority list, in accordance with the marks obtained by him in the combined competitive Engineering Services Examination (ESE) conducted by the UPSC in the year 2003. Based on their performance in the ESE and the interview, the applicant and respondents 6 to 8 were offered Group-A post of Deputy Armament Supply Officer (DASO)-II in the Indian Navy/Ministry of Defence (Navy). Even though the applicant had obtained 673 marks out of 1200 in the Electrical Engineering Stream, he was placed in the reserve list consequent to an amendment to Rule No.13 of the ESE Rules, 2003. The applicant joined service on 8.9.2005. Respondents 6 to 8 had also qualified in the same examination, but in the Electronics and Mechanical Streams. The grievance of the applicant is that though the relative seniority among officers in the same batch selected through a common examination, ought to have been fixed on the basis of marks and consolidated ranking by the UPSC, the procedure was given a go by, resulting in the applicant being placed junior to respondents 6 to 8.

(3.) The applicant's request for correction of seniority list was consistently rejected by the Department and thereupon, the original application was filed, seeking to set aside the orders of rejection and to declare that the applicant is entitled to get his seniority reckoned vis-a-vis respondents 6 to 8, based on the marks obtained by him in the ESE, 2003 and to direct the official respondents to revise and re-fix his seniority and to place him at serial No.8, above the 5 th respondent, in Annexure A2 seniority list.