Clarifications issued by administrative authorities, which are in the nature of amendments to existing rules, cannot have retrospective effect unless expressly stated otherwise.

1. In both petitions common questions of law and facts are involved hence, they are decided by the common order for convenience, writ petition no. 3118/2010 is taken as a leading case.

2. By way of the petition the Central Government as affected party has challenged the judgment and order of the Tribunal whereby the Tribunal has partly allowed the appeal filed by the applicant-respondent no. 1 herein vide judgment and order dated 25th November, 2009.

3. The facts of the case are that the original applicant being aggrieved by the order dated 6th May, 2005 (Ann.A/1) and order dated 27th May, 2005 (Ann.A/2) whereby persons with less merit have been assigned higher seniority and consequential benefits which was produced before the Tribunal and has prayed for following reliefs:-

(i) by an appropriate order or direction the Hon'ble Tribunal may direct the respondents to maintain seniority position so prepared by the Service Selection Commission and the appointments issued accordingly; and

(ii) by an appropriate order or direction the respondents be further directed to maintain inter se merit position of the candidates for the purpose of seniority and promotion i.e., candidates who stood higher in merit in the Service Selection Commission be given higher seniority position and accordingly the seniority be determined. In that regard if any candidate appointed subsequent selection or promotion, he be ranked junior to the earlier selected candidates.

In view of the above prayer, all orders passed contrary to the prayer made above be quashed and set aside and thereby after preparation of correct seniority position, the applicant be given promotion with all consequential benefits on higher post and in that respondent the impugned orders dated 06.06.2005 and 27.05.2005 be quashed and set aside."

4. The original applicant has stated before the Tribunal that the applicant was appointed on the post of Divisional Accountant pursuant to the selection conducted by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) as per the advertisement issued in the year 1993 for the various posts including the post of Divisional Accountant. After selection of the applicants appointment order was issued. The applicants being higher in merit as per merit list prepared by the SSC, their names were also shown at higher place. However, the case of applicants is that they were thereafter, even promotion to the post of Divisional Accounts Officer Grade-II. Their grievance is that persons who are to be reckoned as juniors have been given promotion in Grade-II and Grade-I and Senior Divisional Accounts Officer ignoring seniority of the applicants. According to the applicants this fact of ignoring seniority position based on merit of the selection conducted by the SSC came to their knowledge when order dated 6th May, 2005 and 27th May, 2005 were issued inasmuch as prior to issuance of these two orders, the respondents never issued any seniority list notifying the same for all concerned so as to be determined seniority position of the initial grade coupled with the seniority of the higher grades like Grade-II and Grade-I and even when the orders of the promotion were issued in regard to certain persons junior to the applicants the same were not also circulated. Thus, according to the petitioners the promotion to the post Divisional Accounts Officer Grade-II, Divisional Accounts Officer Grade-I and to the post of Senior Divisional Accounts Officer ignoring seniority list which should be based on merit order as determined by the SSC, is illegal. The further case of the petitioners is that as per information given by the respondents, the change in the order of seniority is for the reasons that the petitioners could not qualify the training examination at immediate stage or earlier then the persons lower in merit to them in the SSC and seniority has to be determined on the basis of passing of examination of training.

5. Counsel for the petitioners in writ petition no. 3118/2010, the Ce