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Court No. - 40

Case :- WRIT - A No. - 14704 of 2021

Petitioner :- Union Of India And 4 Others

Respondent :- The Central Administrative Tribunal Allahabad Bench

And Another

Counsel for Petitioner :- Agam Narain Roy

Counsel for Respondent :- Kamal Singh,Santosh Kumar Kushwaha

Hon'ble Surya Prakash Kesarwani,J.

Hon'ble Vikas Budhwar,J.

1.

Heard Sri Agam Narain Roy, learned counsel for the petitioners

and the learned counsel for the respondent no.2.

2.

This writ petition has been filed praying to quash the order

dated 02.03.2021 in O.A. No.330/00627/2018, passed by the Central

Administrative Tribunal, Allahabad.

3.

Briefly stated facts of the present case are that the respondent

no.2 was appointed as a Postman on 01.08.1991. He appeared in the

Limited Departmental Competitive Examination (LDCE) on 01.07.1996

and was selected for the post of Postal Assistant. The respondent no.2

claimed the benefit of Modified Assured Career Promotion Scheme

(MACP) with reference to the order dated 01.07.1996 i.e. when he was

appointed as Postal Assistant by virtue of a competitive selection. On

refusal by the petitioners, the respondent no.2 filed an Original

Application before the Tribunal which has been allowed by the impugned

order dated 02.03.2021.

4.

In the impugned order, the Tribunal has held in para 6 as under :

“6. Having heard the learned counsel for both the parties at length

and examined the documents on record, we observe that the

interpretation and the position taken by the respondents is far-

fetched. The whole idea of MACP is to compensate an employee

in the absence of regular promotion. The applicant in this case got

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appointed by way of selection and not regular promotion as the

Postal Assistant on 1.7.1996. Therefore, his claim for MACP gets

established after completion of 10 years as Postal Assistant, which

would be 30.06.2006. However, MACP got introduced in the year

2008, so at the least he should have been granted the benefit in the

year 2008 if not from 2006 when his claim got established.

Moreover, the position has been fairly and elaborately settled by

the different Benches of this Tribunal and the pronouncements of

the Hon’ble High Courts of Rajasthan and Delhi. The department

chose to get these orders reversed in the Hon’ble Apex Court

without any success. Therefore, this issue is not open for any

different interpretation by the respondents, that too to the

detriment of the employees.”

5.

In the case of Postal Department itself in Writ Petition

No.30269 of 2014 and MP No. 1 of 2014 (Union of India and Others Vs.

D. Sivakumar and another) decided on 04.02.2015, a Division Bench of

Madras High Court considered a similar controversy and held as under :

“7. In paragraph 19 of the affidavit filed in support of the above

writ petition, the Department itself has given the entire service

particulars of the first respondent. The same can be summarized

for easy appreciation as follows:

Details

Date of

appointment

Remarks

Grade Pay

Entered in service as

Group- D

30.5.1973

Ignored as per DG’s

guidelines vide order No. 4-

7/MACPS/009/PCC dated

25.4.2011

Rs. 1,800/-

Entry in Postman Cadre

22.9.1973

Taken an Entry grade for

the purpose of MACP

Rs. 2,000/-

Promoted to Postal

Assistant Cadre

12.11.1977

Adjusted against MACP-I

Rs. 2,400/-

Granted financial

upgradation under TBOP

Scheme on completion of

16 years of service

15.11.1993

Adjusted against MACP-II

Rs. 2,800/-

Granted financial

upgradation under BCR

Scheme on completion of

26 years of service

1.1.2004

Adjusted against MACP-III

Rs. 4,200/-

8. A close look at the above tabular column would show that even

from the date of his promotion as Postal Assistant, namely

12.11.1977, the first respondent completed more than 30 years

before his retirement. The fact that he stagnated in the post of

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Postal Assistant, is borne out by the very pleadings of the

petitioners.

9. What the Department had done