Paragraph numbers below are the court’s original numbering, recovered from the source text.
6. The Tribunal therefore, allowed the 0.A by its order dated 27.11.1998. It declared that the selection of Respondent No. 3 was in an unreserved vacancy on his own merit. It. directed Respondents Nos. 1 and 2 to empanel the appellant in the reserved category provided that she was qualified according to the marks and seniority in the selection· made, and if there was no SC candidate above her either on marks or in seniority. The Selection of Respondent No. 4 was held to be erroneous, However, s(nce he had retired in the meanwhile, the emoluments received were directed not to be disturbed. The Tribunal further. directed that the appellant if found fit, will be .. ,·. – ·. ,; :~·< – [201 OJ 11 S.C.R. A deemed to be entitled to the seniority in the service from the date of selection of Respondent No. 3, though she will not get the salary till the date she actually assumed charge of the higher post.
7. Being aggrieved by this judgment and order Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 filed Writ Petition No. 1311 of 1999 in the High Court of Madras. The High Court allowed the Writ Petition and set aside the order of the Tribunal. Being aggrieved thereby, the appellant has filed the present appeal.
8. The main-stay of the argument of the appellant was, as stated earlier, that since Respondent No. 3 had been selected on merits he should not be considered as occupying a Scheduled Caste seat. The Scheduled Caste vacancy must therefore go to the next Scheduled Caste candidate as per the D order of merit, and the appellant was that next candidate. Respondent No. 4 (Mr. K. Rajagopalan Nair) should not have been therefore promoted as an open category candidate and that post should have been allotted to the appellant. The appellant relied upon the Railway Board order dated 29.7.1993 E in this behalf, which was issued to implement a full-bench decision of the Tribunal at Hyderabad, which states that where ST/SC candidates were promoted on their own merit, their seniority should not be counted as reserved candidates. The relevant part of the Railway Board's letter dated 29.7.1993 F clarifies as follows in para (Vl):- "(VI) Whether a person belonging to SC/ST promoted on his own merit and seniority should be treated as reserved candidate for counting available SC/ST candidates- As per judgment of the Full Bench of Central Administrative Tribunal/Hyderabad, the SC/ST candidates who have been promoted on their own merit and seniority should not be counted as reserved candidates. It has further been laid K. MANORAMA v. UNION OF INDIA REP. BY GENL. 849 MANAGER SOUTHERN RAILWAY [H.L. GOKHALE, J.] down in Board's letter dated 16.06.1992 that SC/ST candidate can be placed on the panel/select list even in excess of the reserved quota in case such candidates qualify against'general posts on meriUseniority. These SC/ ST candidate should be excluded for the purpose of counting the available SC/ST candidates while computing the reserved quota."
9. Now, as far as this aspect is concerned, Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 had made it clear that where the posts were less than 4, the 40 point roster was expected to be applied. As per c that roster the first point was meant for a Scheduled Caste candidate and second and third points were meant for candidates from unreserved category. There is a note below this model roster which reads as follows:- "Note-/f there are only two vacancies to be filled in a particular year, not more than one may be treated as reserved and if there is only one vacancy, it should be treated as unreserved. If on this account, a reserved point is treated as unreserved, the reservation may be carried forward to the subsequent three recruitment years."
10. It was submitted on behalf of Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 that in view of this note, and the first vacancy in the year 1991 having been treated as unreserved, when two vacancies occurred subsequently, one out of them was being treated as reserved. This was as per the above note which stated that where the reserved point is treated as unreserved, the reservation is to be carried forward. Respondent Nos. 1 and 2 therefore, had to treat one of the two vacancies as a reserved vacancy.
11. In our view, the submission of the respondents Nos. 1 and 2 is well taken. They had to treat one out of the two A vacancies which occurred in the year 1994 as reserved. This is because the first point in the roster was otherwise meant for a reserved candidate. Since, in the year 1991, it was a single post cadre, it had been treated as unreserved. When the single post cadre became a multi-post cadre, and consequently two B seats became ·available in 1994, they had to treat one out of the two seats as a reserved seat. The selection of Mr. Siddiah, therefore, as a Scheduled Caste candidate cannot be faulted.
12. The submission of the appellant was that Respondent No~ 3 had been selected on his merit and that Mr. K.Rajagopalan Nair was placed in the panel contrary to the Railway Board letter dated 14.4.1983. Respondents Nos. 1 and 2 had denied this averment in para 10 of their additional reply before the Tribunal. In para 14 of its order the Tribunal observed as follows:- "14. Reference made in paragraph 10 have no bearing on the point for decision in this case. It is also the contention on behalf of the respondents that since respondent No. 3 is the senior most in the SC quota he is empanelled. The question is, he has obtained the highest number of marks in the said selection. Therefore, the question of he being the SC candidate is evaporated on account of his being the meritorious candidate in the entire selection. If respondent No. 4 has come up in the marks over that of respondent No. 3 and the question of the respondent 3 being the senior in the SC candidates, then respondent No. 3 would have been justified being empanelled in the reserved vacancy. But that was not the case here.
13. Respondents Nos.1 and 2 point out that this finding is erroneous on facts. The chart of the marks obtained by the candidates has been produced before us. The chart reads as follows. K. MANORAMA v. UNION OF fNDIA REP. BY GENL. MANAGER SOUTHERN RAILWAY [H.L. GOKHALE, J.] SELECTION FOR THE POST OF ASSISTANT LAW OFFICER IN SCALE RS. 2000-3500 VIVA VOICE ON 27.04.1995 NUMBER OF VACANCIES 2 (SC-1: UR-1) COMMITTEE MEMBERS: 1. SDGM 2. FA & CAO 3. CPO 4. CELE SHRI R. MOHAN DAS SI. No. Name& Date of Date of Date of Edu ca- Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment tion to qua Ii- c present fication grade 1. M. SIDDAIAH 04.08.43 16.6.65 9.5.85 B.Sc, B.L. (SC) CLA/HQRS Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) Prof es- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. No. Name& Date of Date of Date of Educa- Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment tion to qua Ii- present fjcation grade 2. 24 08.39 16.11.63 .,01.04.87 B.Sc.,LLB RAJAGOPALAN NAIR ASST. SEC. (ADHOC) RRT Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) Prof es- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. Name& Date of Date of Date of Edu ca- No. Desig- Birth appoint- promo- ti on al nation ment lion to qua Ii- present fication c grade 3. SUBRAMANIAN 10.03.40 31.5.62 23.11.87 B.A., L.O. (ADHOC) B.G.L. ICF Diploma in ·Labour Laws with Admn. Law Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) Prof es- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. Name& Date of Date of Date of Educa- No. Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment tion to qua Ii- present fication grade 4. M.ABDUL 01.11.43 11.09.64 01.04.90 B.A, LLB KHADER K. MANORAMA v. UNION OF INDIA REP. BY GENL. 853 MANAGER SOUTHERN RAILWAY [H.L. GOKHALE, J.] I . . –· … _. -· O/MYS Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) Profes- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. Name& Date of Date of Date of Educa- No. Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment tion to qua Ii- present fication grade 5. 22.12.60 13.11.81 24.07.90 B.A.,B.L. MAN ORAMA (SC) CLA/HQRS Marks Obtained Total Remarks Tota! (200 marks) Profes- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. Name& Date of Date of Date of Edu ca- No. Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment lion to quali- present fication grade 6. 05.05.55 22.12.79 03.4.91 B.Sc, LLB MUTHUSAMY CLA/DPO/O/ MAS Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) c c [201 OJ 11 S.C.R. Prof es- Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic (150) Technical/ Qualification (25) SI. Name& Date of Date of Date of Educa- No. Desig- Birth appoint- promo- tional nation ment tion to qua Ii- present fication grade 7. T.P. 26.08.55 31.07.91 24.7.91 MA, LLB BHASKAR CLA/MAS Marks Obtained Total Remarks Total (200 marks) Prof es Record of Personality address sional service (25) & leadership/ Ability Academic ( 150) Technical/ Qualification (25) (R. MOHANDAS) (V. NATARAJAN) (P.MURUGAN) 14. As can be seen from this chart it was Respondent No. 4 who had obtained the highest marks i.e. 128. Mr. V. G Subramanian and Mr. T.P. Bhaskar are next to him with 127 and 125 marks respectively. Thereafter, there are other candidates i.e. Mr. Siddaiah, Mr. Abdul Khader and Mr. Muthusamy who all get 124 marks. Mr. Siddaiah has been selected out of them, essentially because it was a Scheduled H Caste vacancy which came to be allotted to him keeping aside K. MANORAMA v. UNION OF INDIA REP. BY GENL. . MANAGER SOUTHERN RAILWAY [H.L. GOKHALE, J.] other candidates. Not only that, but he was placed at number . one and respondent No. 4 (having higher marks) was placed at number two. The Tribunal held that if Respondent No. 3 got marks lesser than that of Respondent No. 4, only then he can be said to be selected against Scheduled Caste point The Tribunal did not realize that the third Respondent had in fact got marks lesser than the fourth Respondent, and his selection was basically because he was a Scheduled Caste candidate. In view of this position, there is no occasion to apply the instruction contained in Railway Board's letter dated 29. 7 .1993 nor the propositions in R.K; Sabharwal's judgment (supra) to c the present case. Eve.n otherwise, the principle that when a member belonging to a Scheduled Caste gets selected in the open competition field on the basis of his own merit, he will not be counted against the' quota reserved for Scheduled Castes, but will be treated as open candidate, will apply only in regard to recruitment by open competition and not to the promotions effected on the basis of seniority-cum-suitability. 15. The appellan' had argued before the High Court that the candidates who obtained 80% marks or above are to be placed at the top indicating that they are to be selected irrespective of the community factor. In appellant's submission Mr. M. Siddiah, had to be consic. …. red as one such candidate. Now the two relevant rules 204.8 and 204.9 read as follows:- "204.8 The successful candidates shall be arranged as follows: (1) Those securing 80% marks and above graded as 'Outstanding'. (2) Those securing between 60% marks and 79%·marks graded as 'Good'. 204.9 The panel should consist of employees who had qualified in the selection, corresponding to the number of vacancies for which the selection was held. Employees securing the gradation 'Outstanding' will be placed on top followed by those securing the gradation 'Good' interse seniority within each group being maintained.' It is to be noted, as seen from the marks which have been referred to earlier, that none of the candidates obtained more than 80% marks, and therefore, could not be considered as outstanding to be eligible on that footing. On this count also Mr. M. Siddiah's selection cannot be considered as one only on merit irrespective of the community factor. 16. In the circumstances, there is no error in the judgment and order rendered by the High Court. The appeal is, therefore, dismissed. Original Application, filed by the first respondent before the Administrative Tribunal, shall stand dismissed. D.G Appeal dismissed.