Mutual transfers in Railway services must respect original seniority unless justified; improper reassignment mandates corrective action.

ORDER

Ms. Urmita Datta (Sen), Judicial Member:

All these O.A.s are heard separately but for the sake of convenience a common Order is passed in all the O.A.s since they share a common cause of action and interest. For the sake of brevity, facts are delineated from O.A. 350/00275/2022.

The O.A. No. 350/00275/2022 has been filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act , 1985 praying for the following relief:-

“(a) An order be passed directing the Respondent Authorities concerned to forthwith finalise the seniority position of the applicants considering their representation to the provisional seniority list dated 06.03.2019;

(b) An order be passed directing the Respondent Authorities concerned to forthwith grant promotion to the applicants to the post of Senior Goods Guard and place them above the juniors who have superseded them as per the promotion list dated 30.01.2020 and 17.12.2021 and fix the pay and seniority and release benefits and pay admissible."

2. As per the applicants, they are working as Goods Guard in Howrah Division of Eastern Railway. They had joined the present Division by way of mutual transfer and after joining their present place of posting, the respondent authorities had published a provisional seniority list on 06.03.2019 (Annexure A-2) wherein they have been assigned wrong seniority position. The applicants claim that their actual position would reflect in the seniority list which was published on 08.03.2018 (Annexure A-3), in whose place they had joined their present place of posting. The applicants submitted their representation to the provisional seniority list dated 06.03.2019 raising their objection and praying for amending the same. However, without publishing any final seniority list or considering the representations of the applicants, the respondent authorities published the list dated 30.01.2020 (Annexure A-5) for promotion to the post of Sr. Goods Guard from Goods Guard, wherein persons junior the applicants were promoted denying their legitimate claim. The applicants made representation dated 17.02.2020 (Annexure A-6) against the said list of promotees ventilating their grievances followed by reminder dated 11.03.2020 (Annexure A-7) but to no avail. Subsequently, without publishing any final seniority list or considering the representations of the applicants, the respondent authorities published another list of promotees to the post of Senior Goods Guard from Goods Guard dated 17.12.2021 (Annexure A-8) wherein also persons junior to the applicants were granted promotion denying their claim. Being aggrieved with, the applicants submitted representation dated 21.12.2021 followed by further representation by applicant No. 4 which remained unanswered. The applicants claim that despite being in the zone of consideration, the respondents have deprived the applicants of their legitimate claim for promotion to the post of Senior Goods Guard in an arbitrary manner. Thus, the applicants contends that the respondent authorities without publishing the final seniority list ought not to have granted promotion to the post of Sr. Goods Guard, which is violative of Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India.

3. The respondents have filed their reply wherein they have dealt with the cases of the applicants separately and have averred as under:-

The Applicant No. 1, Shri Subrata Dey, Goods Train Manager/BWN (ex-Goods Train Manager/Dhanbad Division, East Central Railway) was appointed as a Ticket Collector in scale Rs. 3050-4590/ on compassionate ground but failed to pass in both his initial training course and repeat training course. Thereafter, he was