Case: Gurdial Singh Fijji Vs. State of Punjab and Others

The appellant, Gurdial Singh Fijji, was selected for the Punjab Civil Service (Executive Branch) in 1953 and was appointed as an Executive Magistrate on June 8, 1954. Respondents 8 to 15 are also members of the same Service, namely, the P.C.S., but they were selected and appointed to that Service after the appellant. They are all governed, in the matter of conditions of their service, by the Punjab Civil Service (Executive Branch) Rules 1930, as amended from time to time by the competent authority. The appellant was confirmed in the cadre on May 8, 1958 while respondents 8 to 15 were confirmed on diverse dates thereafter. In the gradation list circulated by the Government from time to time, respondents 8 to 15 were shown as junior to thethe year 1966, as a result of the reorganisation of the erst-while State of Punjab, the appellant and respondents 8 to 16 were allocated to the State of Punjab. In 1966-67 an adverse entry was made in the confidential record of the appellant while he was working under one Shri Sewa Singh, District and Sessions Judge, Amritsar . That entry was communicated to the appellant whereupon, he made a representation against it but that has still not been disposed of, for one reason or another. The State Government forwarded the representation to Shri Sewa Singh, who declined to express his views upon it unless asked by the High Court to do so. Nothing further has been done in the matter and no decision has yet been taken on the question whether the adverse entry was justified and whether the various content ions raised by the appellant in his representation areappellant worked in various capacities after 1966-67, earning good reports all along. He was permitted to cross the first efficiency bar under an order of the State Government dated June 14, 1966 and the second efficiency bar on July 20, 1971.By an order dated July 3, 1971 published in the Punjab Government Gazette on July 23, the Government promoted respondents 8 to 12 to the selection grade of the Punjab Civil Service cadre. Respondent 15 was similarly promoted on December 19, 1970, respondent 16 on January 1, 1971 and respondents 13 and 14 on July 27, 1971. On March 14, 1972, the appellant was also promoted to the selection grade with effect from January 15, 1972. He made a representation to the Government against the orders promoting respondents to the selection grade prior to him but it was rejected by an order dated June 20, 1973.A Committee consisting of respondents 2 to 7 was constituted under Regulation 3 of the Indian Administrative Service (Appointment by Promotion) Regulations 1955, for selecting persons from the Punjab Civil Service cadre for the purpose of bringing them on the select list of the Indian Administrative Service. The Committee held its meeting at Chandigarh on May 11, 1973 after which it prepared a list under Regulation 5 selecting respondent 9 for being brought on the select list for the purpose of pro motion to the Indian Administrative Service. It would appear that the appellants name was not put on the select list since respondent 2, the Chief Secretary to the Government of Punjab, had refused to give an integrity certificate to him. Appellant made a representation against his non-inclusion in the select list and that representation having been rejected, he filed a Writ Petition (No. 3315 of 1973) in the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, challenging the promotion of respondent to the selection grade, the refusal of the Chief Secretary to issue an integrity certificate to him and his non-inclusion in the Select List of the Indian Administrative Service.The appellants Writ Petition was allowed partly by a l earned single Judge of the High Court by his judgment dated August 19, 1974 whereby the order dated July 27, 1971 of the State Government granting seniority to two junior officers over the appellant in the selection grade was quashed. The learned Judge directed the State Government to reconsider the case of the appellant along with that of three other officers regarding the grant of selection grade with effect from June 25,appellant filed a Letters Patent Appeal (No. 484 of 1974) against the decision of the learned Single Judge which was disposed of by the High Court on November 19, 1976. It was held in appeal that the requirement of Resolution No. 1.1 as regards the production of the integrity certificate was in the nature of a mere executive instruction, that it went beyond the scope of the statutory regulations, that the provision requiring the production of the integrity certificate was unguided and was likely to lead to arbitrariness and unreasonableness and that therefore, Resolution No. 1.1 was ultra vires of Regulations 4 and 5. The entire record of the Selection Committee was placed by the State Government before the High Court in the Letters Patent Appeal, from a perusal of which the High Court came to the conclusion that the decision of the Committee not to include the appellants name in the Select List was not based solely on the ground that he was unable to produce the integrity certificate and that the Committee had given another cogent reason for its decision viz., that the appellant was not suitable for being placed on the Select List otherwise also. Since inclusion in the select list for the purposes of promotion to the Indian Administrative Ser vice was to be made on the basis of merit- cum-seniority, the Committee, according to the High Court, was justified in not including the name of the appellant in that list if, in its opinion, he was not otherwise suitable. The Letters Patent Appeal was accordingly dismissed by the High Court, against which the appellant has filed this appeal by special leave.

Reasoning: The course adopted by the High Court has cause to the appellant an amount of injustice which has to be rectified. It is clear that the Chief Secretary, Punjab, did not grant integrity certificate in favour of the appellant because of the adverse report in his confidential roll for the year 1966-67. One of the reasons which evidently weighed with the Selection Committee in not putting the appellants name on the Select List was that the Chief Secretary had not issued the integrity certificate in his favour. Thus, the non- inclusion of appellants name in the Select List and the non-issuance of the integrity certificate are closely linked, whether or not there was another reason also for which the Selection Committee kept him out from the Selectprinciple is well-settled that in accordance with the rules of natural justice, an adverse report in a confidential roll cannot be acted upon to deny promotional opportunities unless it is communicated to the person concerned so that he has an opportunity to improve his work and conduct or to explain the circumstances leading to the report. Such an opportunity is not an empty formality, its object, partially, being to enable the superior authorities to decide on a consideration of the explanation offered by the person concerned, whether the adverse report is justified. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, not arising out of any fault on the part of the appellant, though the adverse report was communicated to him, the Government has not been able to consider his explanation and decide whether the report was justified. In these circumstances, it is difficult t o support the non- issuance of the integrity certificate to the appellant. The chain of reaction began with the adverse report and the infirmity in the link of causation is that no one has yet decided whether that report was justified. We cannot speculate, in the absence of a proper pleading, whether the appellant was not found suitable otherwise, that is to say, for reasons other than those connected with the non-issuance of an integrity certificate tomay also indicate, since the High Court saw the file and discovered that the appellant was not brought on the Select List because he was "not found suitable otherwise", that regulation 5 which deals with the preparation of a list of suitable officers provides by clause 7 that"if in the process of selection, review or revision it is proposed to supersede any member of the State Civil Service, the Committee shall record its reasons for the proposedthat it is not expected that the Selection Committee should give anything approaching the judgment of a Court, but it must at least state, as briefly as it may, why it came to the conclusion that the officer concerned was found to be not suitable for inclusion in the Select List. In the absence of any such reason, we are unable to agree with the High Court that the Selection Committee had another "reason" for not bringing the appellant on the Select List.In matters of this nature, particularly when the Select Lists have to be prepared and reviewed from year to year, it becomes difficult to work out the logical consequences of holding that the case of any particular officer ought to be reconsidered. But, inevitably, for reasons mentioned above, the case of the appellant shall have to be considered afresh by the Selection Committee.