The ACR of an officer is a figurative assessment related to the nature of performance during a specific period, and mere citing of better ACRs rating in other years would not constitute a valid ground to upset the recorded ACRs.

( 1 ) THE petitioner was commissioned in the Indian Army in June 1982 into 4/a Gorkha Regiment. Since his commissioning, petitioner attended various professional courses and according to him, he did consistently well and achieved highest possible grading. Despite petitioner achieving high grading because of his hard work and successfully completing the course, he was found unfit even for first rank of Lt. Colonel by Selection Boards held in year 1998, 1999 and 2000.

( 2 ) PETITIONER contended that while gleaning through the possible reasons for his supersession, he has come to know that his supersession to the rank of Lt. Colonel was due to his subjective recording of ACR/icr for the period 1993-95. Petitioner s plea is that he was never warned verbally or in writing by any of his superiors for any shortcomings nor was he charged of any indiscipline at any stage. He has all along been obedient, sincere and an honest officer. He feels that his supersession was based on the ACRs of June, 1993 to June, 1995 which emanated from bias and vindictiveness. According to him, unnatural variance between pen picture and the points given in personal/demonstrative qualities in his ACRs for those years was indicative of bias requiring no further proof.

( 3 ) TO substantiate and support the allegation of bias and prejudice, petitioner contended that on his posting after September, 1993 on Indo-China border in inhospitable terrain, he was asked to re-write standing order for war which was last written in 1971. Though writing or updating standing order for war was a momentous task, however, no material was supplied to him to carry out this momentous task and the demand of the petitioner to avail him the facility of library and other material relevant and necessary for updating standing order for war, was not liked by his initiating officer and this was construed as not obeying the order by him. He had raised the point of equitable distribution of workload and hardship caused to persons under him in a company Commander conference, as this had made some of the Army personnel vocal and restless which was not at all liked by his initiating officer. The petitioner also imputed bias to his initiating officer on account of his questioning the professional competence of Capt. Tapan Singh (Adjutant) of the battalion who subsequently deserted the service and who was surprisingly rated as outstanding by both respondents no. 3 and 4. He also attributed malafide to respondent no. 3 who had required to manage a false certificate pertaining to the wife and children of respondent no. 3 which was categorically demanded by him.

( 4 ) THE claim of the petitioner was refuted by the respondents contending that while considering an officer for the promotion to a selection rank, the Selection Board takes into consideration a number of factors such as war/operational reports, course reports, ACRs, performance in command and staff, honors and awards, disciplinary background and not bare gradings in the ACRs. They relied on selection policy dated 6th May, 1987 and contended that the selection/rejection of the petitioner was based upon his overall profile and comparative batch merit and communicated to him in compliance with the instructions. He did not represent against the ACRs within the stipulated period of 90 days and now the allegations made regarding the ACRs for 1993-1995 in the writ petition filed on 8th October,2002 suffers from latches.

( 5 ) THE Respondents also denied that petitioner was graded `outstanding (tm) in Junior Staff Officer (tm)s course in 1998 when he was graded `above average (tm ). It is also explained by respondents that the grading in course reflects the performance of the officer during the course, where as assessment in confidential reports are based on actual performance of the ratee during the reporting period. They assert that the petitioner was graded `above average (tm) in the qualities of knowledge , expression , in th