Allahabad High Court
State Of U.P. Thru. Chief Secy. ... vs Anju Katiyar on 7 February, 2023
Bench: Ramesh Sinha, Subhash Vidyarthi
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD, LUCKNOW BENCH
?Court No. - 1
Case :- WRIT - A No. - 6715 of 2022
Petitioner :- State Of U.P. Thru. Chief Secy. Govt. Of U.P. Civil Secrt. Lko. And Another
Respondent :- Anju Katiyar
Counsel for Petitioner :- C.S.C.
Counsel for Respondent :- Puneet Chandra
Hon'ble Ramesh Sinha,J.
Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J.
1. Heard Shri Rohit Nandan Shukla, the learned Standing Counsel for the State-petitioners and Shri Puneet Chandra, the learned Counsel for the respondent.
2. The instant writ petition has been filed on behalf of petitioners, State of U.P., challenging the judgment and order dated 25.01.2022, passed by State Public Services Tribunal, Lucknow, whereby the claim petition filed by respondent no.1 was allowed.
3. Briefly stated, the facts of the case are that the respondent no.1 is a P.C.S. Officer. For the year 2017-18, the Reporting Officer, i.e. the Secretary of the Commission recorded the annual entry of the respondent no.1 grading her as 'Outstanding'. The Reviewing Authority, i.e. the Chairman of the Commission concurred with the grading done by the Reporting Officer. The Accepting Authority is the Chief Minister, who agreed with the views of the Reporting Authority and the Reviewing Authority, but he gave the grade 'Good' to the respondent no.1. The respondent no.1 submitted a representation on 20.04.2019 before the Accepting Authority -Chief Minister requesting that her grading be restored to 'Outstanding', but the representation remained undecided.
4. The Tribunal held that the Reporting Officer and the Reviewing Officer, both recommended award of 'Outstanding' grade to the respondent no.1 and the Accepting Authority had also agreed with the views of the Reporting Officer and the Reviewing Officer. Therefore, it appears that the grading of 'Outstanding' has been changed to 'Good' due to inadvertence only.
5. We have considered the submissions advanced by the learned Counsel for the parties and gone through the record.
6. Undisputedly, the Reporting Authority of the respondent no.1 is the Secretary of the U.P. Public Service Commission, who had recorded the annual entry of the respondent no.1 and graded her for the year 2017-18 as 'Outstanding'. The Chairman of the Commission is the Reviewing Authority and he had concurred grading done by the Reporting Officer. The Chief Minister is the Accepting Authority and he too had concurred with the views of the Reporting Authority and the Reviewing Authority. As the Accepting Authority had concurred with the views of the Reporting and the Reviewing Authority and had not shown his disagreement with the views of the aforesaid two Authorities, without disagreeing with the views of the Reporting Authority and the Reviewing Authority and without having taken a different view of his own, which might have formed the basis of downgrading the entries, the grading of the respondent no.1 could not have been altered by the Accepting Authority from 'Outstanding' to 'Good'.
7. We agree with the view taken by the Tribunal that it shall be deemed that the Accepting Authority has concurred with the views of the Reporting Authority and the Reviewing Authority after due application of mind. Downgrading the entry from 'Outstanding' to 'Good' without taking a view different from the Reporting Authority and the Reviewing Authority, would be unreasonable and arbitrary.
8. In view of the aforesaid discussion, we do not find any error or illegality in the judgment and order dated 25.01.2022, passed by State Public Service Tribunal.
9. The writ petition lacks merit and is, accordingly, dismissed.
(Subhash Vidyarthi, J.) (Ramesh Sinha, J.)
Order Date :- 7.2.2023
Anand Sri./-
