Shri Shanti Swaroop Bhatti vs State of H.P. and Others

Surjit Singh, J.—Heard and gone through the record.

Petitioner, by means of present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, has sought quashing of promotion of respondent No. 3, Shri Ram Lal Thakur, as District Attorney. He has stated that in the Seniority List of Deputy District Attorneys, he was senior to respondent No. 3 by one step, but when promotions were ordered in the year 1999, he was superseded and respondent No. 3 was promoted. He has challenged promotion order, Annexure A-4, as also Departmental Promotion Committee''s proceedings, Annexure A-5.

I have heard the petitioner, who has argued his case in person.

A reading of Proceedings, Annexure A-5, shows that while evaluating the Confidential Reports of the persons, falling in the zone of consideration, grading awarded by the Reviewing Authority, thereby upgrading the over-all grading, without assigning any reason, had been ignored, and the grading awarded by the reporting authority, based on various columns of the Report, was taken into account. In the case of petitioner, he was graded ''Good'' in five, out of six Confidential Reports and ''Very Good'' in one Report by the Reporting Authority, but the Reviewing Authority, i.e. Secretary (Law), without assigning any reason, upgraded his over-all grading as ''Very Good'' or even ''Outstanding''. When there was no reason given by the Reviewing Authority for such up-gradation, Departmental Promotion Committee rightly ignored such upgraded entry, by the Reviewing Authority.

As per Annexure A-6, Chart of Assessment, prepared by the DPC, respondent No. 3 was graded ''Very Good'' in four out of six Confidential Reports and ''Good'' in two, while petitioner was graded ''Very Good'' only in one and ''Good'' in the remaining five ACRs.

Therefore, no fault can be found with the action of the DPC and the incidental order of promotion. Writ petition is, therefore, dismissed.