- (1.) The appellant S. K. Sharma during the years 1980-81, 1981-82 and 1982-83 was shown as "good" in the ACRs of those years, although there was no formal categorisation. In the ACR of 1983-84 he was described as "average" and the DIG also categorised him as an officer of average caliber. In that particular year, he was holding a dual charge, being Joint superintendent of Police as well as holding charge of part of the establishment work at the Intelligence Headquarters. He had been promoted as Joint Superintendent of Police on 24/11/1982.
(2.) H. N. Srivastava who has been impleaded as a party was described as an officer with "excellent performance" in the year 1980-81. For the year 1981-82 he was categorised as "good" by the Reporting Officer while the reviewing Officer had mentioned his conduct to be "excellent" without making any categorisation. He was promoted as Joint Superintendent of police on 11/7/1983. For the year 1982-83 he was described as "outstanding" whereas in the year 1983-84 the remarks were that his performance was good. The remarks for the year 1984-85 were "very good performance". However, the Director General had merely recorded that he was a useful officer but had made no categorisation.
(3.) The learned counsel for both these officers invited our attention to a decision of the full bench of the central Administrative tribunal dated 29/10/1991. By that decision the tribunal evolved a formula of categorisation. That formula was as under: "The only reasonable and just suggestion that in our opinion can be made to meet the ends of justice in the circumstances of the case is that for the period during which the applicants shouldered the higher responsibilities for the higher Class I posts of ASW/sw, their gradation as SA should be treated as one level higher than the grading awarded to them as ASW as per the ACRs for that period. That is, if the ACR as asw reflects "good" it should be taken as "very good", and if "very good", then it should be taken as "outstanding". In this manner they are placed on equal footing for the purpose of assessment of comparative merits. ";