JUDGMENT

CHINNAPPA REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THE State of Gujarat is the appellant in these two appeals by special leave. As the arguments proceeded, it became clear to us that the appeals had been filed more to vindicate Mr. H. K. L. Capoor, who was previously Chief Secretary to the Government of Gujarat and against whom certain caustic observations had been made by the High Court of Gujarat, rather than for a decision on the merits of the case. In fact, Shri S. T. Desai, learned senior advocate appearing for the State of Gujarat, told us that the State of Gujarat was prepared to abide by the directions given by the High Court of Gujarat in its judgment. We should add that during the pendency of the writ petitions in the High Court, the respondent, apparently in sheer frustration, resigned from service.

( 2 ) THE respondent, S. Tripathy, was recruited to the Indian Administrative Service in 1966 and allotted to the State of Gujarat. His case was that when he was working as an Assistant Collector at Petlad in August 1968, he earned the displeasure of Shri Madhav Sinh Solanki, a Member of the Legislative Assembly, who later became the Chief Minister of Gujarat, as he did not oblige Mr. Solankis father-in-law in some matter. He further stated that he similarly earned the displeasure of Shri H. K. L. Capoor as he refused to oblige him in connection with the grant of some land in Rajkot District to the relative of Mr. Capoor. It was stated by the respondent in the writ petitions that Shri Capoor was Establishment Officer to the Government of India at that time and that he tried to bring pressure on the respondent through the Collector, Shri Ramakrishnan Shri H. K. L. Capoor later became Chief Secretary to the Government of Gujarat. According to the case put forward by the respondent at the hearing of the writ petitions in the High Court, Shri Capoor was prejudiced against him and so, year after year, in his confidential reports, he would repeat the observations "not yet fit for promotion" and "needs to be watched", despite the good emarks and satisfaction earned by the respondent from other superior officers. He was passed over for promotion to the Selection Grade on August 21, 1980 and 6/03/1981 by the Selection Committee presided over by the Chief Secretary, Shri H. K. L. Capoor. When he was passed over for promotion to the Selection grade on 21/08/1980, he questioned the action of the Government by filing Special Civil Application No. 3410/80 in the High Court of Gujarat. The Selection Committee which met on 28/07/198 1/12/1981 and 4/05/1983 deferred the question of promotion of the respondent to the Selection Grade. The question of promoting him to the super time scale was not considered as he had not yet been promoted to the Selection Grade. On 1/02/1984, the respondent was promoted to the Selection Grade with effect from 1/04/1983. On 28/06/1984, the Selection Committee decided that he was not fit for promotion to the super time scale whereupon he filed special civil application No. 3452 of 1984. He resigned from service with effect from 24/07/1984 as he thought that he had been dealt with unfairly by the Government by being denied promotion to the super time scale, which was due to him since a long time. The High Court referred to the several confidential reports in which Shri Capoor had made the remarks "not yet fit for promotion" and "needs to be watched" and found that there was no basis for the remarks made by Shri Capoor. The High Court found that the earlier decision to deny and defer giving the Selection Grade to the respondent and the decision to deny super time scale to the respondent were swayed by extraneous considerations. Both the writ petitions were, therefore, allowed and the State of Gujarat was directed to consider afresh the question of the promotion of the respondent to the Selection Grade as well as to the super time scale and give the respondent the monetary benefits to which he would be entitled on such fresh cons