On the 2nd of June, a bench of Delhi High Court consisting of Justice Amit Bansal, in the case of IC 50116M Brig Neel Kamal Sharma v. Union Of India and Ors., held that the scope of interference with the grading given in the Confidential Reports of an officer in Army Service Corps (ASC) of Indian Army is very limited.
Facts of the case:
A writ petition was filed by the petitioner who was commissioned in Army Service Corps (ASC) of Indian Army on 15th December,1990 and since then has had an exemplary service record. The petitioner was promoted to the post of Brigadier in January, 2018. On 3rd March, 2021, his name was considered for promotion from rank of Brigadier to Major General. Knowing that the Confidential Report (CR) is the most important aspect to be checked while making the promotion, and that he might not have a good score in this regard, the petitioner sought to made a Statutory Complaint on 19th November, 2019 to Ministry of Defence against his CRs earned in the rank of Brigadier for the periods January, 2018 to June, 2018 and July, 2018 to June 2019. The petitioner in his complaint also sought restoration of his CR earned in the rank of Colonel for the period February, 2009 to August, 2009. The Ministry of Defence on 9th September, 2020 passed an order rejecting the Statutory Complaint. Aggrieved by the above order the petitioner approached the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) and later when he was not satisfied with its rejection, the present petition has been preferred.
Contention of the Plaintiff:
The Petitioner in its submission contended the following:
- The impugned CR from the period of February 2018 to June 2018 has a major significance in the quantification system and plays a determinative role in the promotion of the petitioner from Brigadier to Major General.
- While examining and undertaking internal assessment of the impugned CR, the respondents had violated paragraphs 130, 132 as well as para 146 of the AO
- The principal argument on behalf of the petitioner was that in light of the comments made by the SRO, the entire review of the RO should have been expunged from his record.
Contentions of the Respondent:
The Respondents argued on the following grounds:
- An Officer does not have any right to claim an “outstanding assessment‟ in the CRs and it was solely for the various reporting officers to assess the officer objectively, having observed his performance during the period of the report.
- It was further submitted that both the CRs of the petitioner, which were the subject matter of the statutory complaint filed by him, were duly examined in the light of the petitioner’s overall profile, comments of reporting officers and other relevant documents. Therefore the complaint was rightly rejected by the respondents.
Observation and Judgment of the court:
The Delhi High Court in the present case observed the following:
- On going through the CR dossier submitted by the respondents the court was of the view that there was a broad consistency between the grading and the response received by the petitioners in different years; the variations, if any, were quite minor.
- Even though the petitioner had raised questions of bias against Lt. General Thakur, who was the FTO, a perusal of the CR dossier shows that FTO had given a good review in respect of the Petitioner and Petitioner’s apprehensions were misplaced.
The court in this regard held that the scope of interference with the grading given in the CRs of an officer is very limited under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. It also stated that Impugned order of the AFT had considered all submissions made on behalf of the Petitioner and had given exhaustive findings on each issue. No ground for interference with the impugned order passed by the AFT is made out.
The petition was thus dismissed.
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