Heard Mr. Manoj Tandon on behalf of the petitioner and Mr. Amarendra Pradhan on behalf of the respondents.

2. Counter and rejoinder affidavits have been exchanged and since the pleadings are completed, both the counsel have agreed that the writ petition be decided at the stage of 'Admission' itself.

3. The prayer in the instant writ petition is for a direction commanding the respondents to extend the benefits of first Assured Career Progression (ACP) Scheme to the petitioner w.e.f. 9th August, 1999 and second A.C.P. w.e.f. 6th February, 1993 (sic-2003 ?).

4. The admitted facts are that the petitioner joined the Department as an Assistant Engineer on 6th February, 1979 and he completed period of 12 years on 6th February, 1991. The Scheme of ACP was implemented first time on 14th August, 2002 by virtue of which, it was stipulated that an employee who has successfully completed 12 years of service, he shall be given the benefits of ACP Scheme and on completion of 24 years, he shall be given the benefits of second ACP as well. This benefit was granted to the employees with an embargo that in the event the date of completion of 12 years or 24 years fall prior to 9th August, 1999 then the incumbent will not be entitled for ACP prior to the said cut-off date i.e. 9th August, 1999.

5. The claim of the petitioner is that he completed 24 years of service on 6th February, 2003 and therefore, he had perfected his right and claim for second ACP since the period of 24 years of service was fully satisfied.

6. Meanwhile, on account of certain irregularities/illegalities, the petitioner was charge-sheeted on 30th August, 2003 and after facing a departmental proceeding, he was awarded punishment of reversion to the post of Assistant Engineer from the post of Executive Engineer as well as it was directed that he shall not be granted any promotion for a period of ten years. This order was passed by the competent authority vide order dated 24th February, 2009.

7. The claim of the petitioner is that since he had completed 24 years of service prior to initiation of the departmental proceeding on account of an alleged delinquency, he had perfected his right for grant of two A.C.Ps., specially in view of the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Union of India VS. K.V. Jankiraman etc. reported in AIR 1991 SC 2010. Emphasis has been made on paragraph-6, which is quoted herein below:-

"6. On the first question viz., as to when for the purposes of the sealed cover procedure the disciplinary/criminal proceedings can be said to have commended, the Full Bench of the Tribunal has held that it is only when a charge-memo in a disciplinary proceedings or a charge-sheet in a criminal prosecution is issued to the employee that it can be said that the departmental proceedings/criminal prosecution is initiated against the employee. The sealed cover procedure is to be resorted to only after the charge-memo/ charge-sheet is issued. The pendency of preliminary investigation prior to that stage will not be sufficient to enable the authorities to adopt the sealed cover procedure. We are in agreement with the Tribunal on this point. The contention advanced by the learned counsel for the appellant authorities that when there are serious allegations and it takes time to collect necessary evidence to prepare and issue charge-memo/ charge-sheet, it would not be in the interest of the purity of administration to reward the employee with a promotion, increment etc., does not impress us. The acceptance of this contention would result in injustice to the employees in many cases. As has been the experience so far, the preliminary investigations take an inordinately long time and particularly when they are initiated at• the instance of the interested persons, they are kept pending deliberately. Many times they never result in the issue of any charge-memo/charge-sheet. If the allegations are serious and the authorities are keen in investigating them, ordinarily it would not take