Shiva Kirti Singh, J.

1. Petitioner is an Army Officer who joined as 2nd Lieutenant in the Bihar Regiment on 18.3.1978. He rendered satisfactory service on various postings, earned due promotions and in November 1989 he was given charge as Commanding Officer when he was a Major which marked the start of reckonable service for promotion to the rank of Lt. Colonel and Colonel. Promotion to these ranks are by selection on merit. On 20.3.1995, petitioner earned promotion as acting Lt. Colonel by No. 4 Selection Board. For the 1978 batch officers like the petitioner, No. 3 Selection Board held the selection in December 1996 to consider promotion to the rank of acting Colonel / Colonel. After consideration petitioner was not selected either in December 1996 or in December 1997 and December 1998 which were the first and 2nd review meetings of the No. 3 Selection Board for selecting officer from 1978 batch from the rank of Lt. Colonel to that of Colonel. Petitioner has prayed for quashing the result of No. 3 Selection Board proceedings held during December 1996, December 1997 and finally in December 1998 insofar as it relates to the petitioner. He has also prayed for directing the respondents to hold fresh Selection Board proceeding and consider petitioners case after expunging from the records the petitioners ACR pertaining to period June 1990 to May 1991 and June 1992 to May 1993.

2. On behalf of the petitioner emphasis was laid on the fact that petitioners ACR of the year 1989 showed that the petitioner had been given Box grading of 8 by the enquiry officer (IO) as well as by the reviewing officer (RO). Same was the assessment in the ACR of 1988-89 (June 1988 to May 1989) as well as in the ACR of 1991-92 (June 1991 to May 1992) and in the year 1993-94 (June 1993 to March 1994). On that basis it was submitted that ACR for the intervening period i.e. 1.6.1990 to 31.5.1991 in which the Box grading by the lO and RO had been reduced to 7 and the other ACR of intervening period 1.6.1992 to 31.5.1993 in which the Box grading by the RO was reduced to 7 did not correctly reflect the career profile of the petitioner and since such entries were not communicated to the petitioner with an advice for improvement although they lowered the petitioners assessment from earlier years hence, such ACRs were not in accordance with norms and guidelines laid down for recording of ACRs. The other main argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner was that upon the same ACRs petitioners career profile was found good enough to grant him promotion to the rank of Lt. Colonel in 1995 and the ACRs of the petitioner thereafter has shown regular improvement placing him in the category of extraordinary or above average hence, there was no material or reasonable ground to hold that the petitioners career profile was not of the standard to allow his selection to the rank of acting Colonel/Colonel in December 1996, December 1997 or December 1998. In other words, the second argument is that even" on the existing materials, since the petitiner was promoted to the rank of Lt. Colonel in 1995 and there is no adverse material thereafter and rather, the ACRs of later periods are quite superlative, petitioners case has not been considered fairly and in accordance with law and his non-statutory complaint as well as statutory complaint have been wrongly turned down by the authorities.

3. At the time of admission of this case the counsel for the Union of India was directed to keep the relevant records available for perusal of the Court and the same were shown to the Court at the time of hearing. Upon going through the ACRs of different years this Court finds that the factual assertions made on behalf of the petitioner are correct and there has been downgrading in the ACRs of two years against which petitioner lodged a statutory complaint dated 4th June, 1998 which was rejected by order dated 30.3.1999 (Annexure-2). It is also found correct that after his selec