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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY

ORDINARY ORIGINAL CIVIL JURISDICTION

Writ Petition No.2295 of 2005

Shri Ranjan Kumar Routray

..Petitioner

vs

Shri R. Bhattacharjee

Then Additional Director General

and Ors.

.

..Respondents

Mr S.P. Saxena with Mr. S.G. Pillai for the petitioner

Mr. Rajiv Chavan with Mr. Pankaj Kapoor for the respondents.

CORAM: J.N. PATEL,Acg C.J. ,&

S.C.DHARMADHIKARI, J.

DATE: March 12, 2007.

P.C.:-

Heard the learned counsel for the parties.

1.

The petitioner has impugned the order of the Central

Administrative Tribunal(CAT), which has rejected his Original

Application seeking quashing of the adverse entries in the

Annual Confidential Report (ACR) for the year 1993-94 and

consequential proceedings, in which his claim was rejected by

the Chairman, Central Board of Customs and Central Excise

(CBEC) and the Memorial to the Hon`ble President, who also

rejected the petitioner's claim by communication dated 21^st

November 1995.

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2.

It is the case of the petitioner that the adverse entries are

made out of malice, extraneous consideration and has

emphasised his performance on administrative side relating to

his contribution in the seizure of Rs.400 crores while he was

working with D.R.I., Cuttack, which according to the petitioner

has been ignored while entries in his ACR came to be recorded.

3.

On an earlier occasion the petitioner has approached this

Court and impugned the order passed by the CAT and this

Court remanded the matter for its re-examination. It is

thereafter, that the CAT again dismissed the Original

Application of the petitioner by the impugned order.

4.

The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that it was

obligatory on the part of the disciplinary authority to have

communicated the remarks which were entered in his ACR,

which resulted in down grading his assessment from “very

good” to “good”. As the remarks were not communicated, they

cannot be taken into consideration for considering him for

promotion to the higher grade.

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5.

It is specifically submitted before us that the entry would

be adverse, if the authority assessed the performance below

the bench mark prescribed for promotion to the next higher

grade, by placing reliance in the case of U.P. Jal Nigam vs

Prabhat Chandra Jain (1996(33), ATC 217 (SC). Another

contention raised before us is that the official, who assessed

him and made adverse entries in his ACR, was himself under

cloud and, therefore, in the given facts and circumstances the

assessment ought to have been made by the officer under

whom the petitioner had worked from March to November,

1993, rather than an officer, who actually assessed his

performance and made the impugned entries.

6.

We have examined from the copies of the assessment

record i.e. ACR placed on record and found that the allegations

on the basis of which the petitioner claims that the adverse

entries are made out of malice, extraneous considerations and

wholly subjective by ignoring petitioner's contribution in the

seizure of Rs.400 crores, cannot be sustained for the simple

reason that nothing as such is reflected from the ACR. There

has been no specific pleading to that effect by the petitioner in

his application filed before the CAT as to how the officer

concerned had any bias or was prejudiced against the

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petitioner. On the other hand, what we found is that the

Reviewing Committee has agreed with the assessment done

by reporting officer of the petitioner and in one case it has

rectified the assessment relating to the year 1997-98.

7.

We are of the view that the CAT has taken into

consideration the ACR of the petitioner and found that as the

petitioner's grading was not upto the mark and the Reviewing

Authority had written that the petitioner is an average officer

with overall grading as good in the assessment of 1992-93,

cannot