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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION

CIVIL APPEAL No.5638 OF 2004

 Ramchander                               ......Appellant   

Versus

Union of India and others           …..Respondents                   

J U D G M E N T

1. Feeling aggrieved by dismissal of the writ petition filed by  

him  against  the  order  of  the  Central  Administrative  Tribunal,  

Jodhpur  Bench  (for  short,  “the  Tribunal”),  which  declined  his  

prayer for quashing the order of his reversion from Group ‘C’ post  

to  Group  ‘D’  post  and  to  direct  the  competent  authority  to  

regularise his service on Group ‘C’ post, the appellant has filed  

this appeal.

2. The appellant joined service as Farash in the Jodhpur Division  

of  the  Northern  Railway.  After  seven  years,  he  was  sent  on  

deputation in the construction organization of the Northern Railway  

at Bikaner and was directed to work as a Material Checking Clerk.  

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His pay was fixed in the pay scale of Rs.800-1150/-.  In 1997, his  

service was regularised on Group `D' post.  After two years, he was  

declared successful in the test conducted for promotion to Group  

`C' posts.  However, he failed to clear the type test despite  

repeated opportunities. As a consequence, the competent authority  

passed an order dated 01.07.2002 for reversion of the appellant to  

Group ‘D’ post.   

3. The appellant challenged the order of reversion in O.A. No.178  

of  2002.   He  also  prayed  for  issue  of  a  direction  to  the  

respondents  to  regularise  his  service  on  Group  ‘C’  post  in  

accordance  with  the  policy  framed  by  the  Ministry  of  Railways,  

Government of India.  The Tribunal rejected his prayer for quashing  

the order of reversion by observing that having failed to clear the  

type test within the maximum permissible chances, the appellant is  

not  entitled  to  continue  on  Group  ‘C’  post  as  of  right.   The  

appellant’s prayer for issue of a direction to the respondents to  

regularise his service was rejected by the Tribunal primarily on  

the ground of delay.    

4. The writ petition filed by the appellant questioning the order  

of the Tribunal was summarily dismissed by the Division Bench of  

the High Court by recording the following order:

“The  main  point  urged  by  the  learned  counsel  for  the  petitioner  is  that  similarly  situated  persons  were  regularised under the Policy of the year 1991, while the  petitioner was not given the same benefit.  The petitioner

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approached  the  Central  Administrative  Tribunal  only  in  August, 2002 and, one of the ground for dismissal of the  application before the Central Administrative Tribunal is  delay.

We see no infirmity in the decision of the Tribunal  that  the  cause  of  action  with  respect  to  the  point  of  discrimination  arose  in  the  year  1993,  when  similarly  situated persons are alleged to have been regularised.  The  petition is liable to be dismissed on this ground alone.”

5.      We have heard learned counsel for the parties and carefully  

perused the record including the additional documents filed with  

the rejoinder affidavit and I.A.No.1 of 2005.  In our view, the  

High Court committed an error by non-suiting the appellant only on  

the  ground  of  belated  filing  of  the  application  before  the  

Tribunal.  The High Court should have taken note of the fact that  

the appellant had not only claimed regularisation on Group `C' post  

by asserting that similarly situated persons had been regularised  

in service but had also challenged his reversion and the Tribunal  

had not dismissed the application on the ground of delay insofar as  

his prayer for quashing the order of reversion was concerned.  That  

apart, we feel that the claim of the appellant for regularisation  

of service on Group ‘C’ post deserves to be examined in the light  

of the documents filed by him along with the rejoinder affidavit  

and I.A. No.1 of 2005.

6. For  the  reasons  stated  above,  the  appeal  is  allowed,  the  

impugned order is set aside and the matter is remitted to the High

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Court for disposal of the writ petition on merits. The parties may  

file supplementary affidavits and documents before the High Court  

within a period of three months.   

7. Since the matter is more than 9 years old, we request the High  

Court to make an endeavour to dispose of the writ petition as early  

as  possible  but  latest  within  six  months  from  the  date  of  

receipt/production of a copy of this order.  

………………………………J.                  (G.S. Singhvi)

………………………………J.             (Asok Kumar Ganguly)

New Delhi, April 07, 2011.