Past service must be counted towards eligibility for promotion following a transfer, and arbitrary reversion without proper justification is unlawful.

ORDER

(Pronounced by Hon'ble Mr. Sisir Kumar Ratho, Member(A))

This OA has been filed by the applicant seeking the following reliefs:-

“(i) to call for the records relating to Sam/No.U/P.612/III/Ticket Checking in File No.SR-MDUOPERS(COMC)/11/2021-0/0 CHOS/TFC/PB/MDU/SR dated 13.09.2021 (Annexure A-7) and Office Order No.28/III/2021/Sr.TE dated 21.10.2021 (Annexure A-9) issued by the Respondent, and quash A-5 and quash that part of the order in A-7 where it is stated as "Sri.M.Shibu, selected as TE through LDCE is to be reverted to his previous cadre, SCP, as instructed by HQ, and hence his name is not included in this seniority list."

ii) to declare that the Applicant is eligible for continuing in the cadre of Level-3 Ticket Examiner;

(iii) to direct the Respondent to include the Applicant in the Provisional Seniority List in Annexure A-7 and his promotion as Senior Ticket Examiner vide the List in Annexure A-9;

(iv) to grant such other relief, which this Hon'ble Tribunal may deem fit and proper in the circumstances of the case;

(v) to award costs, and pass such further and other orders as may be deemed and proper and thus render justice.”

2. The facts of the case as submitted by the applicant, are as follows, in brief:-

2.1. The applicant was appointed under the Southern Railways as Group D Sweeper-cum-Porter (SCP) in the Traffic Operating Department. He was initially posted in the Tiruchchirappalli Division. Accordingly on his request for inter-divisional transfer in the year 2017 in the same category/cadre, he was transferred from Tiruchchirappalli Division to the respondent Madurai Division, subject to the condition that he will be placed in bottom seniority in the unit to which he was being transferred as per the scheme for Inter- Divisional One Way Transfer.

2.2. Subsequently, the respondent Madurai Division published a Selection Notification dt. 29.05.2017 (05.06.2017) calling for applications to the promotional post of Ticket Examiner against 16-2/3 % LDCE. One of the selection criteria stipulated therein was that “Employees applying for the selection should have put in a minimum of 2 years continuous service as on 28.05.2017.” Since the applicant had put in 2 years 10 months of continuous service as on the cut-off date of 28.05.2017, he applied for promotion and he was selected and posted as Ticket Examiner vide order dt. 02.01.2019 and he had since been serving in the said post. All of a sudden, the respondent herein issued a Show Cause Notice dt. 09.05.2021 asking the applicant to show cause as to why action should not be taken for reverting him from the post of Ticket Examiner to SCP. The applicant immediately submitted his reply dt. 14.06.2021 explaining the correctness in his continuance as TTE but there was no further reply from the respondents till date and the decision regarding the applicant's proposed reversion is still pending.

2.3. While so, the respondent had issued the impugned proceeding dt. 13.09.2021, excluding the applicant's name from the “Provisional Seniority List of Ticket Examiner in Level 3 of Pay Matrix”, with a footnote stating that “Sri.M.Shibu, selected as TE through LDCE is to be reverted to his previous cadre, SCP, as instructed by HQ, and hence his name is not included in this seniority list.” Such a remark was entirely out of the blue, given that the applicant had till date not received any such decision/order/instructions from the Head Office. The applicant submitted his detailed representation/objections dt. 16.09.2021, seeking for the footnote to be revoked and for his name to be duly included in the Provisional Seniority List. However, without considering the applicant's representation, the respondent had gone ahead to issue the second impugned office order dt