Chinnappa Reddy, J. - (1.) The judgment in this appeal is really an appendix to the judgment pronounced by us in Civil Appeal No. 2112 of 1979. The relevant facts may be gathered from that judgment. The further events requiring to be mentioned are these:While the writ petition filed by Ahluwalia in the High Court of Himachal Pradesh was pending, some of the respondents to the writ petition and one R. R. Verma all direct recruits, chose to file a writ petition in the Delhi High Court questioning the notice dated June 29, 1973, calling upon them to submit representations against the year of allotment proposed to be allotted to Sahney, Dhaliwal and Ahluwalia. After the writ petition of Ahluwalia was allowed, and after the Central Government passed the order dated July 27, 1979, pursuant to the direction issued by the High Court of Himachal Pradesh, the Delhi High Court dismissed the writ petition filed by the direct recruits as infructuous. The High Court, however, granted a certificate of fitness to appeal to this Court under Article 133 of the Constitution. Therefore, this appeal. The writ petition having been dismissed as infructuous we do not see how a certificate under Article 133 could have been granted. But, we do not want to dismiss the appeal on that preliminary ground. Shri R. K. Garg, learned counsel for the appellants challenged the order of the Central Government dated July 27, 1979 on three grounds: (1) Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules, offended Article 14 of the Constitution and was ultra vires as it conferred arbitrary and uncanalised power upon the Central Government to grant relaxation whenever it pleased it to do so. (2) The discretion to relax the rules was wrongly exercised in the present case. (3) The Central Govt. was powerless to review its earlier orders as such a power of review was not expressly conferred by the rules.
(2.) The second question has already been considered by us in Civil Appeal No. 2112 of 1979 and we have held that this was a fit case for the exercise of the power of the Central Government to relax the rules.
(3.) The first question is about the Constitutional validity of Rule 3 of the All India Services (Conditions of Service-Residuary Matters) Rules 1960, Rule 3 is as follows: "3. Power to relax rules and regulations in certain case. - Where the Central Government is satisfied that the operation of - (i) any rule made or deemed to have been made under the All India Services Act, 1951 (61 of 1951) or (ii) any regulation made under any such rule; regulating the conditions of service of persons appointed to an All India Service causes undue hardship in any particular case, it may, by order, dispense with or relax the requirements of that rule or regulation, as the case may be, to such extent and subject to such exceptions and conditions, as it may consider necessary for dealing with the case in a just and equitable manner". The submission of Shri Garg was that the rule conferred upon the Central Government absolute and arbitrary discretion, a discretion left entirely to the satisfaction of the Government with no prescribed objective standards or guidelines. It is true that the rule is couched in a language suggestive of near-autocratic power reminiscent of "bad old days" of the Imperial Raj but, we have no doubt that the rule is not meant to vest the Central Government with power to pass any order they like with a view to promote the interests of a favoured civil servant. It is really meant to relax, in appropriate cases, the relentless rigour of a mechanical application of the rules, so that civil servants may not be subjected to undue and undeserved hardship. Sufficient guidance can be had from the very rule and from the scheme of the various statutory provisions dealing with the conditions of service of Members of the All India Service.;