Seniority of transferred railway staff fixed below existing employees on own request or per mutual exchange rules, not initial appointment date.

ORDER

Per : Hon’ble Shri Lok Ranjan, Member (A)

The present Original Application had been filed by the Applicants, who were working in the Track Machine (TMC) Organization under the North Western Railway (NWR) MC in NWR, Jaipur Division ; and who were aggrieved by the seniority lists in the Grade of Khalasi (TMC) issued on several dates, viz. 10.06.2021, 05.05.2022 and 11.05.2023 – whereby the Applicants had allegedly been assigned the seniority based on their date of joining in the present grade / office ; whereas the Applicants had claimed that the same should have been assigned on the basis of the date of their initial appointment in Level-I (Grade Pay Rs.1800/-). Since the facts and grounds of all the Applicants were identical, they were aggrieved of a common order and the relief sought by all of them was also same – hence all the Applicants had filed this Original Application jointly.

2. The relevant matrix of facts that emerged from the pleadings in the present O.A. is summarized briefly hereafter. The Applicants were appointed as Khalasi / Track Maintainers in Group-D with Grade Pay (GP) of Rs.1800/- on various dates with various Railways / Units ; and had later moved from other Railways to NWR or from one cadre/Division of NWR to another cadre/Division of NWR – either on own request (5 Applicants) or on mutual transfer (2 Applicants). Accordingly, the seniority of employees transferred at their own-request had been determined to be below that of the existing confirmed, temporary and officiating Group-D Khalasi/Track Maintainers in their new establishment, irrespective of the date of confirmation or length of officiating or temporary service of the transferred railway servants in their respective original unit. Further the seniority of employees transferred on mutual exchange basis had been determined by either retaining their own seniority on the basis of the date of promotion to the grade or as the seniority of the railway employees with whom they had exchanged, whichever of the two may be lower.

3. Subsequently, vide the Notification dated 30.08.2019, applications were invited inter alia from Khalasi/Track Maintainers working on regular basis in Level-1 (GP Rs.1800/-) for filling up of vacant 137 posts [UR-63, SC-20, ST-09, OBC-45) of Khalasi in Level-1 (GP Rs.1800/-) in the Engineering Department’s TMC Organization of NWR. The aforesaid notification also incorporated a condition at Serial No. 11 that the seniority of employees so appointed shall be maintained at the Railway Head Quarter Level. In pursuance to the above notification, employees from various units under the NWR had given their options, based on which a Select/Suitability List of 137 employees, inter alia the Applicants in the present O.A., was issued vide Order dated 18.03.2020. The same had purportedly been arranged in the order of the date of initial appointment of these employees in Level-1 (GP Rs.1800/-), based upon the record/details/options received from the Establishment Branch of the concerned Divisions/ADENs ; but that was indicated further as liable to be changed upon receipt of revised details from the concerned Divisions/ADENs. Subsequently, the Respondents had vide the Letter dated 22/28.04.2020 issued the provisional seniority list inter alia in the Grade of Khalasi(TMC) in the TMC Organization, while also inviting objections in relation to the same, if any. Further thereafter, the Respondents had issued the impugned provisional seniority list dated 10.06.2021 in the Grade of Khalasi(TMC) in the TMC Organization that was purportedly ba