The central legal point established in the judgment is the principle of non-discrimination in service matters, highlighting the provisions of FR 53 and the requirement to treat similarly situated persons equally.

1. The present writ petition is directed against the order dated 9th July, 2004 passed in OA No. 44/2004 by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi.

2. The brief facts of the case are that on 5th October, 2000, a raid was conducted by the PRG Team. A charge-sheet was issued against the Petitioner and other persons on allegations of collecting money from commercial vehicles. A Departmental Inquiry was conducted and the Inquiry Officer found guilty all the persons, including the Petitioner, and submitted the report to the Disciplinary Authority. The Petitioner and other persons submitted their representations against the findings of Inquiry Officer. After considering the representations, vide order dated 4th August, 2003, the Joint Commissioner of Police dismissed the Petitioner and other police officers. The Petitioner made an appeal before the Commissioner of Police on 25th August, 2003 which was rejected by order dated 15th December, 2003.

3. The Petitioner, aggrieved by the aforesaid order, filed the present OA No. 44/2005, which was dismissed by order dated 9th July, 2004 Challenging the aforesaid order of the Tribunal, WP(C) No. 11825/2005 was filed by the Petitioner, before this Court, in which a liberty was granted to the Petitioner, vide order dated 17th August, 2005 to file a Review Application before the Tribunal and the writ petition was disposed of.

4. In pursuance of the directions dated 17th August, 2005 of this Court, the Petitioner filed a Review Application No. 206/2005 which was dismissed by order dated 21st December, 2006 which is under challenge in the present writ petition.

5. The ground of challenge is that OA No. 1613/2004 and OA No. 81/2004 filed by Raj Karan and Jai Kishan respectively, who were similarly situated persons, were allowed, but the OA of the Petitioner was dismissed without distinguishing the charges against the other persons and charges of the Petitioner. Whereas, the charges were same in toto and were charge-sheeted for the same incident and for the same cause of action.

6. We have repeatedly asked learned counsel for the Respondents that how the cases of Raj Karan and Jai Kishan were different from the case of the Petitioner. He could not distinguish the case of the Petitioner and the case of other similarly situated persons, mentioned above.

7. We have observed that the case of Raj Karan which was under challenge in OA No. 1613/2004 and the case of Jai Kishan in OA No. 81/2004 are factually and legally same but the learned Tribunal was in error by deciding the case of the Petitioner in negative and the case of other persons in their favour.

8. The Petitioner filed a Review Application No. 206/2005 and MA No. 1914/2005 in OA No. 44/2004 to review the order of the CAT dated 9th July, 2004,on the ground that the case of similarly situated persons in OA No. 1613/2004 and OA No. 81/2004, were same and were allowed, whereas, the case of the Petitioner was dismissed by the Tribunal.

9. We have gone through the order dated 21st December, 2006 in RA No. 206/2005. Paragraph 5 of the Review Order, is reproduced as under:- ?We notice that the applicant has himself admitted the guilt and in no circumstances, subsequently he could state that such admission was erroneous. Mr. Arun Bhardwaj, learned counsel has emphasized upon a judgement passed by a Co-ordinate Bench of this Tribunal in OA No. 1613/2004 and argued that in similar circumstances when the Tribunal recording a finding that the applicant therein was not guilty of having demanded and accepted the entry money as a bribe, the applicant herein also cannot be held guilty of accepting illegal gratification in the absence of any eye witness. It is further argued that mere recovery in a trap case uncorroborated with any evidence directly on the issue of either demand or acceptance would not be sufficient to hold the guilty. We find that there are distinguishable features. The applicant herein has admitted