Point of Law: when a recommendation is made by the Selection Committee comprising of such high ranking officials and even constitutional functionary, there has to be a very strong and justifiable reason to decline such recommendation

JUDGMENT :

1. These proceedings under Article 226 of the constitution of India have been instituted assailing the decision of the Competent Authority of the Central Government, whereby the proposal of Department of Personnel and Training (hereinafter referred to as "DoPT") for denial of extension of term of appointment of the petitioner as Judicial Member in Central Administrative Tribunal (hereinafter referred to as "CAT") has been approved. This decision has been taken in purported compliance of the judgment and order dated 08.05.2019 passed by this Court in Writ Petition No.6640 (S/B) of 2017.

2. Challenge herein has also been made to the communication dated 24.10.2019 made by the DoPT whereby it has been informed that the matter relating to extension of term of appointment of the petitioner was placed before Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (herein after referred to as "ACC") and the ACC has approved the denial of extension of the term of the petitioner for another term as Judicial Member of CAT.

3. Heard Shri Anil Kumar Tiwari, learned Senior Advocate, assisted by Shri Aditya Tewari for the petitioner and Shri S. B. Pandey, learned Assistant Solicitor General of India along with Shri Raj Kumar Singh, for the respondents. We have also perused the original records, which have been produced before us by the learned counsel representing the respondents.

4. Learned Senior Advocate has argued that the impugned decision and the resultant communication are completely illegal and erroneous for the reason that in the present case it is revealed that the ACC did not take independent decision in the matter and as a matter of fact, the decision taken by the ACC was vitiated for the reason that it was based on the recommendation of the DoPT which procedure is not available in the rules governing the extension of term of appointment of a member of CAT. It has further been argued that since the rules governing the extension of term of a member of CAT do not envisage any recommendation to be made by the DoPT as such the procedure adopted in this case for arriving at the impugned decision is not only alien to the scheme of the rules but this recommendation is a material which is extraneous and thus could not have been considered. Further, learned Senior Advocate has stated that, in fact, as per the scheme of the rules governing the extension of term of a member of CAT, it is only the recommendation of the Selection Committee to be headed by none other than a sitting Judge of the Supreme Court and the views of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India along with any other material which may have some bearing and reflection on the candidature of the person concerned, can be taken into account and since in this case it is the recommendation/proposal submitted by the DoPT for denying the extension of term of appointment of the petitioner which has been approved as such the decision making process adopted by the ACC to arrive at the impugned decision is erroneous and against the provisions contained in the rules.

5. Shri Tiwari, learned Senior Advocate has also submitted that the exercise undertaken by the Secretariat of the ACC by inviting the proposal/recommendation from the DoPT is even against the mandate of the judgment and order dated 08.05.2019 passed by this Court in the earlier Writ Petition filed by the petitioner, namely, writ petition No.6640 (S/B) of 2017. He has further submitted that the reasons which can be culled out for denying the extension of term of the appointment of the petitioner in this case are in fact non-existent, in asmuchas the proposal submitted by the DoPT to the ACC for denying the extension of term of the appointment of the petitioner only makes mention of three additional complaints which were already examined by this Court in its judgment dated 08.05.2019 and were found not to be adverse to the petitioner's candidature. In this view the submission is that even the proposal submitted by the DoPT on which the approval