Delhi High Court
M.T.N.L. vs Pradeep Kumar Biswas on 5 March, 2012
Author: Badar Durrez Ahmed
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
% Judgment delivered on 05.03.2012
+ W.P.(C) 8985/2011
M.T.N.L. ..... Petitioner
versus
PRADEEP KUMAR BISWAS ..... Respondent
Advocates who appeared in this case:
For the Petitioner : Mr Ravi Sikri and Mr Vaibhav Kalra
For the Respondent : Mr Sindhu Sinha
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE BADAR DURREZ AHMED
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V.K.JAIN
JUDGMENT
BADAR DURREZ AHMED (ORAL)
1. This is the second round before this Court. Earlier, the order dated
14.07.2010 passed in Original Application No. 227/2009 by the Central
Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi, was the subject matter of a
writ petition filed by the petitioner herein being WP(C) No. 7572/2010. When the
matter came up for admission before this Court on 26.11.2010, this Court had
passed the following order:-
"1. Learned counsel for the petitioner urges that 2 pay-
bands in the scale of Rs 2000-3200 and Rs 2000-3500
were placed in the replacement scale of Rs 6500-
10500. Learned counsel urges that the respondent was
admittedly in the pay-scale of Rs 2000-3500 and thus
would be entitled to the replacement pay-scale of
Rs6500- 10500. Learned counsel urges that the Sub
Divisional Engineers (SDEs) who were treated as
Assistant Engineers (Telecom) were directed to be placed
in the revised pay-scale of Rs 7500-12000 as per the
directions of the Ministry of Communications. Counsel
urges that the use of the acronym „AE‟ pertaining
to Assistant Engineers as also the acronym „AE‟ used for
the respondent who was an „Automobile Engineer‟
resulted in the confusion when implementing the
directions of the Ministry of Communications relatable
to SDEs. The Department simply made applicable the
directive to all so who were being referred to as „AE‟.
Counsel urges that a post of an Automobile Engineer
is equivalent to that of an Junior Telecom Officer and
hence requires to be placed in the revised pay-scale of
Rs6500-10500.
2. Issue notice to the respondent returnable for
24.1.2011.
CM No.19716/2010
1. Issue notice to the respondent returnable for 24.1.2011.
2. In the meanwhile, till the present order is vacated or
modified, operation of the impugned order shall remain
stayed."
2. Ultimately, the writ petition was sought to be withdrawn by the petitioner,
particularly with a view to file some additional documents before the Central
Administrative Tribunal which had not been produced before the said Tribunal
earlier. A Division Bench of this Court by an order dated 24.01.2011 granted the
said liberty as also the liberty to file an appropriate application for review before
the Tribunal. The order passed by the said Division Bench was as under:-
"Learned counsel for the petitioner, on instructions, seeks
to withdraw the writ petition in view of filing of some
additional documents which were not produced before
the Central Administrative Tribunal with liberty to
produce the said documents before the Tribunal with
appropriate application for review or such applications as
may be deemed appropriate by the petitioner.
The petition is, therefore, dismissed as withdrawn with
liberty as prayed for. The interim order dated 26.11.2010
is vacated. All the pending applications are also disposed
of.
Dasti."
3. Therefore, it is clear that this Court had granted liberty to the petitioner to
produce the additional documents before the Tribunal and had also granted liberty
to move an application for review. Consequently, it was incumbent upon the
Tribunal to have considered those documents and to have passed an order
thereafter. Unfortunately, from the order dated 23.05.2011, passed in Review
Application No. 79/2011, it appears that the Tribunal did not consider the said
documents and rejected the Review Application. The Tribunal was of the view that
the said documents did not fall within the scope of review. When this Court
granted liberty to the petitioner to produce those documents before the Tribunal, it
was the duty of the Tribunal to have considered those documents. Unfortunately,
the order passed by the Tribunal was as under:-
"Considering the limited scope of Review Application,
we do not find the present case as either an error apparent
on the face of record or of rejection of a new important
matter of evidence, which despite due diligence, could
not be produced by the respondents at the time the order
in the Original Application was passed. We also note that
this order had been passed by us on 14.7.2010. The
review applicant, even when they approached the High
Court, instead of challenging this order as erroneous,
withdrew their writ petition and sought to file the
documents, which are purported to be additional
affidavits, affecting the decision in the present case.
Having considered carefully, on no ground whatsoever,
we find the present Review Application as entertainable
which is dismissed hereby."
4. The order passed by the Tribunal has resulted in setting at naught the very
objective of the order dated 24.01.2011. We may also point out that in the order
dated 14.07.2010 there is no discussion with regard to the said documents. We feel
that the Tribunal ought to have considered the relevance of the said documents on
the merits of the matter. Since it did not do so, we are left with no alternative but
to set aside both the orders dated 14.07.2010 and 23.05.2011. It is ordered
accordingly. The matter is remitted to the Tribunal for considering the documents
along with the other documents which are already on record and to pass a fresh
order after giving an opportunity to the parties to present their respective cases.
The writ petition stands disposed of accordingly.
BADAR DURREZ AHMED, J
V.K.JAIN, J
MARCH 05, 2012
BG
