The SC bench of Justice U.U. Lalit, Justice Vineet saran and Justice Ravindra Bhat said that where there will be restructuring of cadres results in creation of new posts, the policy of reservation would apply in effecting promotions to those posts. It said that in conformity with its decision of 2008 in Pushpa Rani’s Case.
The bench while hearing the writ petition filed by Union of India, which was filed in the Patna HC and was transferred. In this case an OA was filed before CAT, Patna in relation to restructuring of the post of Central Excise Inspector with Higher Scale Superintendent in Bihar. This view of the tribunal was challenged by UOI in Patna HC which was later requested to transfer to SC by the UOI itself on account of other pending Civil Appeals before the court.
The apex court noted here that other Appeals were dismissed on default of appearance of UOI and also no attempts were made to restore them. In this case the court said that the order of CAT was compiled by the department and the benefits of the tribunal stands conferred on the Original Applicants.
In the case of Pushpa Rani the court said that- “Once it is recognised that the additional posts becoming available as a result of restructuring of different cadres are required to be filled by promotion from amongst the employees who satisfy the conditions of eligibility and are adjudged suitable, there can be no rational justification to exclude the applicability of the policy of reservation while effecting promotions, more so because it has not been shown that the procedure for making appointment by promotion against such additional posts is different than the one prescribed for normal promotion.”
The bench in this case finally gave its order from the Judgement of Pushpa Rani’s case so far as the principle issues involved are concerned and also asked that what is the value of a declaration if it does not deal with the facts of the case?
