The court ruled that seniority must be based on vacancy year not appointment date, ensuring uniform application of established seniority principles per previous judicial rulings.

ORDER

Per: Hon’ble Shri Santosh Mehra ……Member(A)

Through this OA, the applicant has sought the following reliefs:

a) Call for records of the case from the respondents and on perusal

(b) Issue a direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to implement the order dated 2.3.2018 in OA No.586-599/2015 in rem in respect of all the Inspectors who were recruited pursuant to Combined Graduate Level Examination 2006 and assign appropriate seniority in terms of the vacancy year and not from the date of appointment and fix the inter se seniority in terms of the rotation of quota principle;

(c) And grant such other reliefs as this Hon'ble Tribunal deems fit to grant to the applicants in the circumstances of the case including an order as to costs, in the interests of justice.

2. The facts in in a nutshell are as follows:

a. The applicants are essentially requesting that the relief extended in OA NUMBER 586 – 599/2015, in terms of assignment of seniority should have been extended to them also. They are aggrieved by the circular bearing number GCCO/II/34/14/2022-ESTT-O/o Pr CC- CGST-ZONE-BENGALURU dated 23-9-2022 (Annexure- A1) and want that their seniority should be restored in consonance with the judgements of the Bangalore bench of Hon’ble CAT in the above OA, which was subsequently upheld in Karnataka High Court also.

b. The Counsel for the 51 applicants in this case points out that these applicants appeared in August 2007 in the Combined Graduate Level Examination 2006. However, they could join only in 2009, as the letters of their appointment were issued only in 2009. Their contention is that their seniority should have been fixed up in terms of the orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court dt. 27.11.2012 in the case of Union of India versus NR Parmar in Civil Appeal No. 7514-7515 of 2005, which was affirmed by this Hon’ble Bench of CAT, in its order dt. 02.03.2018 in OA number 586-599/ 2015, which is cited as Annexure A5.

c. The counsel for the Applicants further contends that in a matter with similar circumstances, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in its order dt. 25.09.2019 dismissed in SLP number 4870- 4871/2018, thereby upholding the judgement of the Hon’ble High Court of Madras. Likewise, the Karnataka High Court, had upheld the orders of Bangalore Bench of CAT in Writ Petition No. 19800/2019 in its order dated 18.10.2019 which is marked as Annexure 6. The Review Petition no. 27/2021 filed by the Respondents was dismissed in the Hon’ble High Court of Karnataka by order dated 17.12. 2021 in which the respondents were given six months time to implement the orders of Hon’ble CAT in OA number 586– 599/2015. Similar orders were passed by this Bench of Hon’ble CAT dt. 24.03.2022 in the CP No. – 82/2020.

d. The Learned Counsel for Applicats points out that in pursuance of the same Respondent issued the circular No- GCCO/II/34/14/2022-ESTT-O/o Pr CC-CGST-ZONE- BENGALURU dt. 23.09.2022 in which Para 2 indicated that the implementation will be in Personam and restricted only to the applicants in the above mentioned OAs. The counsel avers that this restriction is patently unjust, illegal and in violation of Principles of Equality as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of India.

3. The Counsel for the Applicants points out that the respondents have also unilaterally revised the seniority of promotees while revising the seniority of the applicants in pursuance of the directions given by the Hon’ble CAT in OA number 586-599/2015. Consequently, these applicants have become junior to the applicants in the above cited OA, which is against the initial seniority decided a