Judgment :

Leave granted.

The appellant herein was appointed as Deputy Director of Training on or about 13.11.1992. He attended a training programme on Computer Applied Technology. He was sent on deputation on various occasions in 1997, 1998 and yet again in 2000. Indisputably, remarks in his Annual Confidential Reports throughout had been "Outstanding" or "Very good". He, however, in two years i.e. 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 obtained only "Good" remark in his Annual Confidential Report. The effect of such a downgrading falls for our consideration. The Union of India issued a Office Memorandum on 8.2.2002 wherein the Bench mark for promotion was directed to be "Very Good" in terms of clause 3.2 thereof. It is also not in dispute that Guidelines for the Departmental Promotion Committees had been issued by the Union of India wherein, inter alia, it was directed as follows:

".....6.2.1(b) The DPC should assess the suitability of the employees for promotion on the basis of their Service Records and with particular reference to the CRs for five preceding years irrespective of the qualifying service prescribed in the Service/Recruitment Rules. The 'preceding five years' for the aforesaid pu