The Court, as a court of record, has inherent powers to correct records and rectify apparent errors. It can issue directions to rectify injustice in a contempt application.

JUDGMENT :

L. Mohapatra, J. - This is an application u/s 12 of the Contempt of Courts Act read with Article 215 of the Constitution of India.

The facts leading to filing of this application are as follows:-

The petitioner had filed Original Application No.817 of 2006 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Cuttack Bench, Cuttack praying for appointment to Indian Administrative Service against the post available for the year 2005.

2. Case of the petitioner is that he is an officer of Orissa Civil Service in Super Time Scale. In the year 2003 he became eligible for promotion to I.A.S. under the provisions of Regulations 5 (5) of IAS (Appointment by Promotion) Regulations, 1955. Unfortunately, no selection was held for the years 2003, 2004 and 2005 as the selection for the years 2002 and 2003 was challenged in the High Court in various writ applications and the matter being subjudice, no steps were taken for selection. After the writ applications were disputed of by the High Court, D.P.C. was held on 5th and 6th October 2006. On the basis of the records of service, the petitioner was selected for appointment to I.A.S. in the year 2005. However, the said selection was made provisional on the ground that the disciplinary proceeding was pending against him. The said D.P.C. which selected him for the year 2005 carried forward his selection to 2006 but again kept it provisional for the very same reason. The petitioner thereafter was censured in the departmental proceeding. With the above background of the case, the Tribunal after taking into consideration the stand taken by the State Government as well as U.P.S.C. and the Union of India allowed the Original Application by judgment and order dated 24th August, 2007. The operating part of the judgment of the Tribunal is quoted below:

With the above-mentioned consideration, we are of the view that there is merit in this O.A. which is allowed. We direct that the State Government will ignore the punishment of censure awarded to the applicant as it would relate to the period of commitment of the alleged irregularity and it should issue a clearance certificate in favour of the applicant. Thereafter, it should forward the same to the UPSC. On receipt of the clearance certificate, the UPSC should take further step to appoint the applicant to the IAS ignoring that as per rule is validity would have expired by 31st December, 2006. The entire exercise shall be completed within a period of three months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. There shall be no order as to costs.

3. Challenging the said judgment of the Tribunal, the State came up in a writ application vide W.P.(C) No. 581 of 2008. It is stated at the Bar that the said writ application was heard and judgment was reserved but before the judgment was delivered, the case was listed on the basis of a memo filed by the learned counsel for the State on 22.7.2009 praying for withdrawal of the writ application. When the matter was taken up by this Court on 22.7.2009, a memo was moved on behalf of the State for withdrawal of the writ application. The then Assistant Solicitor General appearing for the UPSC opposed withdrawal of the writ application and submitted that the list sent for filling up the vacancy in the Indian Administrative Service up to the year 2006 had been exhausted and names are only to be sent for the year 2007 onwards. On the basis of the above submission made by the learned Assistant Solicitor General, the Court directed that vacancy in the Indian Administrative Service from the year 2007 onwards to be filled up considering the names of all eligible persons including the petitioner.

The above submission made by the learned Assistant Solicitor General at the time of hearing of the writ application on 22nd July 2009 was based on in correct information. From Annexure-3, it is very clear that for each of the year, 2004, 2005 and 2006 one post remained unfilled. The chart indicated in Annexure-3 issued by the Government of