The main legal point established in the judgment is that the OM dated 21.01.2002, an executive order, had the full force of law and required compliance within a stipulated timeline by all ministries/departments. The court also emphasized the enabling provisions made in the Constitution and the applicability of the OM in granting consequential seniority to SC/ST employees.

JUDGMENT

Rajiv Shakdher, J.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background:

Submissions of the Counsel for the parties:

Submissions of the petitioner

Submissions on behalf of the official respondents i.e., respondent nos. 1 to 3:

Submissions on behalf of the private respondents i.e., respondent nos. 4 and 5:

Analysis and reasons:

Conclusion:

Preface:

1. This writ petition is directed against the order dated 03.02.2021, passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal [in short `the Tribunal'] in O.A. No.4016/2016.

2. The principal litigating parties are two sets of employees who work for respondent no. 2 i.e., Prasar Bharati. The petitioners represent one set while respondent nos. 4 and 5 represent another set of employees. The remaining parties are the official respondents. The petitioners belong to the reserved categories i.e., Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) while respondent nos.4 and 5 belong to the Unreserved (UR) category. [For the sake of brevity, wherever required, the petitioners as also respondent nos. 4 and 5 will be collectively referred to as "employees", unless the context requires otherwise.]

3. The core issue which arises for consideration is: whether the petitioners should get the benefit of consequential seniority on having been promoted to the post of Cameraman Grade-I, having regard to the fact that most of them were promoted to the said post on date(s) earlier to respondent nos. 4 and 5.

3.1. This issue arises in the backdrop of an accepted position that respondent nos. 4 and 5 were appointed to the feeder post [i.e., the post of Cameraman Grade-II] earlier in point of time than the petitioners.

3.2. The Tribunal, via the impugned judgment, has ruled in favour of respondent nos. 4 and 5 by applying the "catch-up rule". Being aggrieved, the petitioners have approached this court and assailed the impugned order of the Tribunal, on various grounds.

Background:

4. Before we proceed further, it would help if we were to set forth the dates of appointment and promotion of the litigating parties in a tabular form. It would be relevant to note, at this stage, that some of those who are part of this action have been accorded further promotion to the post of "video executive".

4.1. As would be evident upon perusal of the aforementioned tabular chart, respondent nos. 4 and 5 were promoted to the post of Cameraman Grade-I on 29.06.2012, while petitioner nos. 1, 2 and 3 were promoted to the very same post on 16.11.2004, 22.11.2004 and 08.12.2005 respectively.

4.2. Given this position, once respondent nos. 4 and 5 were promoted to the post of Cameraman Grade-I on 29.06.2012, they were of the view that the seniority list for the post of Cameraman Grade-I should reflect that they were senior to the petitioners.

4.3. Consequently, representations were made by respondent no. 5 to official respondent i.e., respondent no.3, on 30.05.2013, 19.02.2014 and 03.01.2015. The burden of the said representations was that the "catch-up rule" should be applied to him, and once course correction is made, the corrected seniority list should be published.

4.4. It appears that the representations did not bear fruit as expected. However, with the Supreme Court rendering its judgment on 27.08.2015, in the case of S. Panneer Selvam & Ors. vs. State of Tamil Nadu & Ors., (2015)10 SCC 292 [In short "S. Panneer Selvam case"], a new hope sprung in the hearts of respondent nos. 4 and 5, as the judgment, inter alia, held that, in the absence of a provision being made in the