Prayer: This Writ Petition has been filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for issuance of Writ of Certiorari, to call for the records pertaining to order dated 20.09.2024 passed in Original Application No.1095 of 2015 by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chennai Bench, and quash the same.

For Petitioners : Mr.A.R. Sakthivel

For Respondent : Mr.D.Muthukumar for M/s. Paul & Paul

ORDER

(Order of the Court was made by P.VELMURUGAN, J.)

This Writ Petition has been filed by the Union of India against the order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Chennai Bench, in O.A.No.1095 of 2015 dated 20.09.2024, whereby, the writ petitioners were directed to promote the respondent notionally to the post of Foreman from the date of vacancy i.e. 01.045.2013 with all consequential benefits, including retiral benefits and the petitioners were granted time of three months to complete such exercise.

2 Mr.A.R.Sakthivel, learned counsel for the petitioners would submit that the Tribunal has passed the order granting the prayer sought for by the respondent, which is contravenes the express provisions of the Recruitment Rules but also fundamentally alters the statutory structure of recruitment without jurisdiction.

2.1 The learned counsel contended that the dispute pertains to the filling of a Foreman post at 8 Base Repair Depot, Air force Station, Avadi, which became vacant on 01.05.2013. The Recruitment Rules governing this post mandate that 66.66% of Foreman vacancies be filled by promotion and 33.34% by deputation. At the time of vacancy, two Foreman posts had already been filled through promotion, leaving the third and final post to be filled strictly by deputation.

2.2 Despite sincere efforts to fill the vacancy via deputation, no suitable candidate was available. Based on the continuing shortage of manpower in the supervisor cadre, the fourth petitioner submitted a proposal to divert the deputation vacancy to promotion mode, which was transmitted to Air Headquarters, which in turn acknowledged the situation, but, advised that diversion of quota required formal approval from the Ministry of Defence and the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). Hence a draft amendment to the Recruitment Rules proposing 100% promotion mode was also forwarded for consideration, however the UPSC did not accept this and instead approved a revised ratio of 70% promotion and 30% deputation.

2.3 In this backdrop, the respondent’s case could not be considered and the same has been put forth by petitioners, which was not considered by Tribunal. The statutory Recruitment Rules prescribe the quota with reference to total sanctioned strength of posts, not by simple sequential count or turn-based roster, which are not independently determinative of mode of recruitment unless mapped against total establishment and calculated in a manner that satisfies and prescribed quota ratio. Hence interpreting the fourth vacancy as promotional, without correlating to overall composition, misapprehends the framework of the Recruitment Rules. Therefore the Tribunal went in wrong in treating the historical non-utilizatin of deputation quota as legal justification for promotion, which is liable to be set aside.

3 Learned counsel for the respondent would contend that the respondent was working as Chargeman, (FMT) under the control of 4th petitioner. The next avenue of promotion for the respondent is to the post of Foreman and on completion of 5 years of service in the post of Chargeman, the respondent is eligible to be considered for promotion as Foreman. A vacancy in the said post arose on 01.05.2013, due to the retirement of one Foreman Mr.R.Kasi on 30.04.2013. The respondent, being the senior most eligible person, represented to 4th petitioner on 13.05.2013 for considering him for promotion and 4th petitioner also recommended his name for promotion, but the Head Quarters rejected the recommendation saying that 66.66% of the post to be filled up by promotio