ORAL ORDER

(As per Hon’ble Dr. Lata Baswaraj Patne, Judicial Member)

By this OA, the applicant has sought the following relief:

“…….APAR marks shall be awarded as per guidelines for rendition of Annual Performance Assessment Report(APAR) for the scientists of Defence Research and Development Services (2020).”

2. The brief facts of the case are that, the applicant is currently posted at ASL Hyderabad, DRDO as Scientist-D. He has always been graded in „Outstanding‟ or „Very Good‟ category, in his previous APARs for the last 8 years. However, he was degraded to „Good‟ category in the APAR for the year 2022. It is the contention of the applicant that since he is degraded to „Good‟ from „Very Good‟ category, he is not eligible to appear before the Assessment Board for promotion. According to the applicant, the Accepting Authority has reduced 05 marks from the marks given by the Reviewing Officer. There is no marking column provided for the Accepting Authority in the APAR. Further, the remarks of the Accepting Authority on the assessment and the marks awarded by him do not match with each other. As per the APAR Rules of DRDO, the pen picture and the APAR marks must corroborate with each othe