G. Srinivas Rao vs Union Of India & Ors

2. The facts very briefly are that the appellant, a general candidate not belonging to any reserved category, took the Civil Services Examination, 1998 conducted by the Union Public Service Commission and he secured 95th rank and was appointed to the IPS and was allocated to the Manipur-

Tripura Joint Cadre on 27.10.1999. Respondent No.4, who 2 as an OBC candidate, also took the Civil Services Examination, 1998 and secured 133rd rank and was appointed to the IPS and was allocated to the Andhra Pradesh Cadre on 27.07.1999. The appellant filed O.A. No.155 of 2001 before the Central Administrative Tribunal, Hyderabad Bench, contending that instead of respondent no.4 he should have been allocated to the Andhra Pradesh Cadre and that the allocation of respondent no.4 to the Andhra Pradesh Cadre was bad in law, unjust and unsustainable. The appellant prayed for a direction from the Tribunal to the respondent no.1 to allocate him to the Andhra Pradesh Cadre. The Tribunal, however, did not find any irregularity in the roster system followed by the respondent no.1 in making the allocations and by order dated 25.07.2001 dismissed the O.A. The appellant challenged the order dated 25.07.2001 of the Tribunal before the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution in Writ Petition No.17902 of 2002 and contended that though there was in the year 1999 a vacancy for a general candidate in the Andhra Pradesh Cadre to which the appellant could be allocated, this was converted to a 3 vacancy for OBC candidate and the respondent no.4 was allocated to this vacancy in the Andhra Pradesh Cadre. The appellant also contended before the High Court that this vacancy for a general candidate was converted to a vacancy for OBC candidate on the ground that relevant data for five years in respect of OBC was not available though actually such data was available. Since this aspect of the matter had not been considered by the Tribunal, the High Court allowed the Writ Petition, set aside the order of the Tribunal and remanded the case to the Tribunal for fresh consideration.

3. After the case was remanded to the Tribunal, the respondent no.1 filed a petition before the Tribunal seeking leave to file an additional affidavit and pursuant to leave granted by the Tribunal, the respondent no.1 filed an additional affidavit. In this additional affidavit, the respondent no.1 stated that a total number of 36 vacancies in the IPS were to be filled up on the basis of the Civil Services Examination, 1998 and out of total number of 36 vacancies, 21 vacancies were to be filled up by general candidates, 10 vacancies were to be filled up by OBC 4 candidates and 5 vacancies were to be filled up by SC/ST candidates in accordance with the reservation provisions and the roster points and in May 1999, the vacancies were distributed category-wise in the following manner:-

The Tribunal in its order dated 09.01.2004 accepted this explanation of the respondent no.1 and rejected the argument of the appellant that the respondent no.1 had 6 arbitrarily taken a lower ranking candidate in preference to high ranking general candidate while making the allocation to the Andhra Pradesh Cadre. Aggrieved, the appellant filed Writ Petition No.8072 of 2004 before the Andhra Pradesh High Court and contended that despite availability of data pertaining to OBC candidates for five years, the respondent no.1 did not consider the same while making the allocation.

The competent authority accordingly diverted two vacancies for general candidates, one from the 15 Andhra Pradesh Cadre and one from the Assam-

11. In our considered opinion, therefore, the High Court was right in taking a view that no relief can be granted to the appellant on the ground of delay on the part of the appellant in moving the Tribunal. The appeal is therefore dismissed. No order as to costs.