The court upheld the discretion of the Selection Committee in assessing promotion eligibility, emphasizing its independence from prior ACR assessments.

ORDER

By Ms. Mallika Arya, AM

The applicant is belonging to the State Civil Services of MP. The name of the applicant did not figure in the notification whereas respondents No. 4 to 10 who were junior to the applicant in the State Civil Service got appointed to the IAS. The applicant submits that he has been superseded by his juniors on account of non-consideration of his candidature. He has been declared solely ‘unfit’ on the basis of un-communicated ACRs for the period ending March 2008. The applicant has further reasons to believe that the Selection Committee downgraded the ACR of the applicant for the remaining years under the garb of overall assessment. No reasons whatsoever have been recorded by the Selection Committee for not accepting the grading awarded by the departmental authority. Therefore, the applicant alleges that the entire selection process is tainted with arbitrariness.

2. In accordance with the provisions contained in the IAS Recruitment Rules of 1955 the Central Government determined a total number of 8 vacancies in the promotion quota for the State of MP for the year 2010 and 21 vacancies for the year 2011. The name of the applicant in the State Civil Services as on 01.04.2012 (Annexure A-1) figures at Sl. No. 83 and the names of Respondents No. 4 to 6 figures at Sl. No. 87, 88 and 89. Hence, Respondents No. 4 to 6 were junior to the applicant in the cadre of State Civil Services. A meeting of the Selection Committee was convened on 14.09.2013 and the cases of all the eligible officers against vacancies of 2010 and 2011 were considered. The applicant has been able to obtain the minutes of meetings of the Selection Committee held on 14.09.2013 (Annexure A-2) under the RTI. On the recommendation of the Selection Committee, Respondent No. 1, issued a notification dated 08.10.2013 (Annexure A-3) wherein some of the officers of the MP State Civil Services have been appointed to the IAS. Five officers were promoted against the vacancies for the year 2010 and 17 officers have been promoted against the vacancies for 2011. The applicant has reasons to believe that ACR for the period ending March 2008 was assessed as ‘Average’ by the Selection Committee. Accordingly he was declared ‘Unfit’ as the benchmark for promotion was ‘Good’. The Selection Committee under the garb of relative assessment has made it’s own assessment and awarded grading other than what was awarded by the departmental authorities. For example the applicant was awarded ‘Outstanding’ for the period 01.04.2006 to 31.03.2007, 01.04.2009 to 31.03.2010 and 01.04.2010 to 31.03.2011. However, the Selection Committee did not accept the said grading and assessed the ACR for the said period as ‘Very Good’. The Selection Committee could not have considered the ACR for the period ending March, 2008 as the applicant was posted as Chief Executive Officer of Zila Panchayat Rajgarh from April to July 2007. After that he was relieved to pursue on the job MBA course from the University of Ljubljana (Slovania). He reported back for duty in November 2008.

3. The applicant has further submitted that self appraisal form for the year 2011 was submitted late by him because he was on a foreign assignment. Hence this cannot be the basis to declare him ‘unfit for promotion’. This fact has not been brought to the notice of the ‘Selection Committee’ nor it has been considered by the Committee. The applicant has submitted that the action of the Selection Committee is patently discriminatory and indenture of fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

4. The appli