JUDGMENT :

AJAY MOHAN GOEL, J.

1. The controversy involved in this Writ Petition is in a very narrow campus. The petitioner herein is aggrieved by notification dated 5th August, 2014 (Annexure PE), vide which the private respondents stood promoted to the post of Section Officer (Class-II Gazetted), in the pay band of Rs. 10300-34800+5000 Grade Pay with immediate effect.

2. The case of the petitioner is that the post of Section Officer is a selection post which in terms of notification dated 6th November, 2009 (Annexure PA), is filled up by way of promotion from amongst Class-III officials of the Local Audit Department who have passed both parts of SAS examination of the Local Audit Department. In terms of Annexure PD, which is a tentative seniority list of Junior Auditors (Class-II Non-gazetted), the name of the petitioner is reflected in the same at serial No. 18, whereas the names of the private respondents are reflected at Serial No. 19, 21 and 22 respectively. The contention of the petitioner is that ignoring the fact that he was senior to the private respondents, vide impugned promotion order, the respondents have been erroneously promoted to the post of Section Officer before the petitioner and this has resulted on account of the consideration of those ACRs of the petitioner by the DPC which ACRs were never conveyed to the petitioner. To be more precise, in Para 9 of the petition, it has been mentioned that the respondents conveyed only three ACRs to the petitioner i.e. ACRs of the year 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 and the petitioner was not aware of his previous ACRs grading and it was incumbent upon the respondents to convey the ACRs of the petitioner prior to the year 2010 also. Primarily, it is on this ground that the impugned promotion order has been challenged on the contention that noncommunicated ACRs of the petitioner have been taken into consideration while assessing the suitability of the petitioner for the post in question.

3. In order to verify the correctness of the allegations so contained in the Writ Petition, the respondents/State was directed to produce before the Court the proceedings of the ACRs on the recommendation of which the impugned promotion order was passed as also the previous ACRs of the petitioner. This record has been produced today by the learned Additional Advocate General. A perusal of the Minutes of the Meeting of the Departmental Promotion Committee held on 15th July, 2014, demonstrates that it considered the names of 9 candidates who were in the zone of consideration for promotion to the post of 3 Un-Reserved Vacancies (2 clear cut and 1 anticipated) and it took into consideration the Annual Confidential Reports for the relevant five years i.e. from 2008-2009 to 2012-13, for assessing the merit/suitability of the candidate and also to satisfy that no vigilance/ departmental inquiry etc. was pending against him.

4. On the strength of the said assessment, the DPC gave the final assessment of “Good” to the petitioner and “Very Good” to the private respondents. These recommendations culminated into the issuance of the impugned promotion order.

5. Learned Additional Advocate General has made available to the Court the Annual Confidential Reports of the petitioner from 2008-2009 to 2012-13, perusal of which demonstrates that in all these ACRs, the petitioner was assessed as “Good.” It is the admitted case of the petitioner that he was communicated the ACRs for the years 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13. Thus, in other words, two ACRs which have been gone into by the DPC which were not communicated to the petitioner pertained to the year 2008-09 and 2009-2010. This is an admitted case and there is no need to further dwell upon it. However, on the asking of the Court, learned Additional Advocate General also made available to the Court the ACRs of the petitioner pertaining to the year 2006-07 and 2007-2008. In these two ACRs, the petitioner has been graded as “Very Good.” It is settled law that in cas