Summary
Scheduled Tribe Inspectors in the Customs and Central Excise Commissionerate, and personnel of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, complained that reserved promotion vacancies stayed unfilled because too few reserved candidates fell within the zone of consideration. The Tribunal and the High Courts directed a separate zone of consideration for SC/ST candidates in regular promotions. The Court held that these orders confused three distinct regimes. Special drives fill backlog vacancies, ad hoc promotions follow the 1983 memoranda, and regular promotions go through a DPC under separate memoranda. Basudeo Anil concerned only ad hoc promotions. The 1980 memorandum's extended zone of five times the vacancies for SC/ST candidates had been upheld in P. Sheshadri. The tribunals had answered a question that did not arise, so the appeals were allowed.
Issues
- Whether SC/ST candidates are entitled to a separate zone of consideration in regular promotions, beyond the extended zone of five times the vacancies under the Office Memorandum of 24.12.1980.
- Whether the principles for ad hoc promotions, applied after Basudeo Anil quashed the Office Memorandum of 30.9.1983, govern regular promotions.
Held
- There are three distinct situations in promotion. Backlog vacancies are filled through a special drive, as under the memorandum of 26.8.2004, in which all candidates belong to the reserved category. Ad hoc promotions are governed by the 1983 memoranda. Regular promotions are made through a DPC under the memoranda of 24.12.1980, 22.4.1992 and 6.1.2006. (¶¶ 25, 26, 28, 29)
- Basudeo Anil was confined to the memorandum of 30.9.1983 on ad hoc promotions. The memorandum of 30.4.1983 itself provided that regular promotions continue under the existing procedures. The rule for ad hoc promotions therefore could not be transposed to regular promotions. (¶¶ 15, 16, 25)
- The memorandum of 24.12.1980 allows the zone of consideration to be extended to five times the vacancies where enough SC/ST candidates are not available, with those so selected placed en bloc below others. Its validity was upheld in P. Sheshadri and cannot be tested again by reference to the rules for backlog or ad hoc promotions. (¶¶ 4, 9, 20, 27)
- The Tribunal and the High Courts missed the real controversy. They did not examine whether a special drive for backlog vacancies existed or whether the candidates were wrongly left out of it. They applied the ad hoc standard to regular promotions and so answered a question that did not arise, and their directions for a separate or extended zone were set aside. (¶¶ 21, 23, 26, 29)
Result
Appeals allowed. The orders of the Tribunal and the High Courts directing a separate or extended zone of consideration for SC/ST candidates in regular promotions are set aside.