ORDER

1. This is an appeal, preferred against the judgment and order passed by the Principal Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal, New Delhi, rejecting the OA preferred by the appellant, challenging the promotion given to Respondents 7 to 10, who according to the appellant, were junior to him and did not fulfil the eligibility criteria. So far as Respondents 4 to 6 are concerned, though junior, were eligible for consideration but they were a promoted superseding the appellant. During the course of the argument, grievance was also made about the promotion of two other officers, namely, A.K. Bhatnagar and D.S. Sachdeva, on the ground that they were not found fit for ad hoc promotion to the post of Superintending Engineer but later, on the same material, they were regularly selected and placed above the appellant. However, we find that so far as these two officers, namely, b Bhatnagar and Sachdeva are concerned, they are not impleaded as parties in this appeal. Hence, their matter stood closed. We may have to consider the question of selection and seniority of Respondents 4 to 10.

2. The promotion in question relates to the post of Superintending Engineer from the post of Executive Engineer. It appears that the appellant was appointed in the year 1973 as Assistant Executive Engineer and was C placed at S1. No. 435 of the seniority list of the Assistant Executive Engineers. So far as Respondents 4 to 10 are concerned, they were appointed on different dates. Some of them earlier to the appellant and some later. They were, however, placed below Sl. No. 435 in the seniority list. It further appears that they were promoted as Executive Engineer on different dates and the seniority position was maintained as in the earlier seniority list, namely, they were placed below the appellant. Thereafter, the next promotion which was to the post of Superintending Engineer, was made in the year 1986. The appellant was appointed to the grade of Superintending Engineer, on ad hoc basis by order dated 30-6-1986. According to the respondents, namely, S.R. Pandey and Jose Kurion, they were also appointed on ad hoc basis but were placed below the appellant. Some other Executive Engineers were also e promoted on ad hoc basis by order passed in March 1986. This list included Executive Engineers who were senior to the appellant and other respondents who were junior to him and had been left out in the earlier list of ad hoc promotion.

3. The regular promotion to the post of Superintending Engineer was made by order dated 20-10-1994. The grievance of the appellant is that he has been shown at Sl. No. 56 whereas other officers, namely, Respondents 4 to 10 and the seniors who were left out earlier, have been shown above the appellant even though the record available for consideration for the two selections, namely, ad hoc promotion and regular promotion, was the same. We may, at this juncture, like to observe that the earlier promotion seems to have been considered and made on ad hoc basis. Learned counsel for the respondents points out that it was done by scrutinising the records by a Screening Committee whereas the regular selection is by the Committee headed by a member of the Public Service Commission. The consideration and the scrutiny for regular promotion would obviously be on a different footing. The regular selection would not fail merely by the reason that someone who is selected, was not given ad hoc promotion earlier. It is submitted that the criterion for selection to the post of SuperintendingEngineer is merit. That being the position, in our view, no grievance can be made even if some person junior to the appellant may have been selected a considering merit, leaving out any other senior officer.

4. However, the main grievance of the appellant is that those officers who besides being junior were also not eligible for consideration on the date the selection was held, they could not be considered and promoted at all. If that is done, it wo