A Division Bench of Justice MR Shah and Justice B.V. Nagarthana observed that the objective and purpose of the grace marks policy is to pass the candidates marginally failing in their exams and certainly not for the candidates who have passed in their respective categories and in view of the same allowed the present appeal filed by the Union of India and others assailing the impugned judgment and order of the High Court whereby the application of the applicant was allowed seeking grace marks even after securing requisite marks for his category.
The present appeal was preferred by the appellant against the judgement and order dated February 20, 2015 passed by the High Court of Rajasthan whereby the High Court allowed the petition preferred by the original petitioner by setting aside the judgement and order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal Bench, Jodhpur whereby the Tribunal dismissed the application preferred by the original applicant and directed to extend the grace marks in the subject “Other Taxes” by treating him as a person belonging to general category, hence Union of India preferred the present appeal.
Factual Background
Brief facts of the case for perusal of the present appeal were that the original applicant belonged to the Scheduled Tribes category. He was appointed as Lower Division Clerk in the Department of Income Tax. Thereafter he was promoted to the posts of Tax Assistant, Sr. Tax Assistant and Office Superintendent.
To regulate the departmental examination for Income Tax Inspectors, the competent authority introduced new rules. The said Rules were made applicable for the departmental examination to be held in 1998 and onwards. The departmental examination under the Rules, 1998 consisted of six papers namely viz. Income Tax Law and Assessment, Other Taxes, Bookkeeping, Office Procedure, Examination of Accounts and Hindi Test. A candidate securing minimum 45% marks in five subjects except in Hindi was entitled to be declared as pass. For the members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes the minimum marks required to qualify the examination was 40% of the maximum marks.
For the benefit of those candidates, who marginally failed to secure minimum marks/percentage irrespective of their category on falling short of passing, upto five marks, the Central Board of Direct Taxes introduced policy of awarding grace marks.
The original applicant secured more than 45% marks in each subject except the subject of “Other Taxes”. It was the case of the applicant that he was entitled for grace marks in the subject of “Other taxes”, however the same were not granted to him as he belonged to the category of Scheduled Tribes. The same compelled him to approach the Central Administrative Tribunal.
Basically the case of the applicant before the Tribunal was that he belonged to the ST category and he passed in the examination by securing standard marks required for his category. However, secured 43 marks in one subject and if he had been given two grace marks in the “Other Taxes Paper” he would have been declared passed in 2007 itself on his own merit and would have attained the benefit of promotion against general vacancies.
The Tribunal dismissed the application preferred by the applicant and observed that the CBDT circular providing grace marks cannot be construed to mean that the person who has passed in his own category can be given grace marks in order to make him eligible for the general category. The Tribunal further stressed upon the objective of providing grace marks by stating that the same was introduced for students marginally failing in their examination.
In pursuance of the same, the applicant instituted a writ petition before the High Court and the same was allowed by the impugned judgment by observing that the applicant should be granted grace marks in the subject “Other Taxes” by treating him as a person belonging to general category.
Feeling aggrieved by the impugned judgment and order passed by the High Court, the Union of India and others preferred the present appeal.
Case of the Appellants
The Counsel for the appellants submitted that the High Court erred by observing that the applicant shall be granted grace marks and failed to consider the objective of the grace marks policy. It was further observed that the Tribunal rightly observed that the grace marks policy was not applicable to individuals securing passing marks in their own category.
Case of the Respondent
The Counsel for the respondent per contra submitted that the High Court was right in its ruling and further submitted that some of the employees were given five grave marks despite the fact that they secured requisite passing marks of 40 % meant for SC/ST category.
Observation of the Court
The Top Court after hearing the submission of the rival parties submitted that the objective and purpose of introducing the grace marks policy by CBDT was to enable the marginally failing candidates to pass in their examinations. It was further observed that if the contention of the respondent was accepted then the same shall vitiate the objective of the policy and the same shall be indeed beyond the terms of the policy introduced by CBDT. Additionally it was submitted that the High Court’s reliance on the case of Rajesh Kumar Darai had no applicability to the facts of the present case.
In light of the aforesaid observations, the Apex Court observed that the impugned judgment and order passed by the Division Bench of the High Court was quashed and set aside. Accordingly the order of the Tribunal dismissing the O.A. was restored .In view of the same, the present appeal was allowed.
Case Name: UNION OF INDIA AND OTHERS Vs. MUKESH KUMAR MEENA
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