Case: SANJAY PRAKASH &amp; ORS Vs. UNION OF INDIA &amp; ORS

2. The scope of dispute involved in the writ petitions out of which these proceedings arise have been summarised in the first paragraph of the Judgment under appeal. This paragraph reads:-These five petitions, by personnel of different services viz. Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force(BSF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Indo Tibetan Border Police(ITBP), and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), collectively known as Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), (i)impugn the direction of each of the said services, for filling up of the additional posts created pursuant to the Cadre Review (CR)of the year 2016, as per existing Recruitment Rules (RRs), which provide for certain percentage of posts at each level upto Senior Administrative Grade (SAG) being filled up by deputation; and, (ii) seek mandamus directing the respondents to amend the RRs of each service, by including various attributes, as required by Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Office Memorandums (OMs)dated 20th November, 2009, 15th December, 2009, 24th March 2009, 24th April 2009 and 8th May, 2018, particularly to the extent provide for all posts upto SAG level being filled up by promotion only and not by deputation, and to thereafter conduct CR of Group A Officers of each cadre, by treating each service as Organised Group A Service (OGAS), as held by this Court in G.J.Singh Vs. Union of India 2015 SCC online Del 11803 and affirmed by the Supreme Court in Union of India Vs. Harananda (2019) 14 SCC 126. 3. The writ petitions were disposed of in the following terms by the High Court:-We thus dispose of these petitions:(I) By permitting the members of each Central Armed Police Force to, if so desire, make comprehensive representation(s) to the Ministry of Home Affairs, for amendment of the respective Recruitment Rules of each Central Armed Police Force including qua Cadre Structure, Residency, Deputation etc.(II) By directing the Ministry of Home Affairs to, in compliance of the DoPT OMs dated 31st December, 2010 and 8th May, 2018, immediately undertake the exercise for review of existing Recruitment Rules of each Central Armed Police Force, also taking into consideration the representation(s), if any, received from the members of the Central Armed Police Forces and after giving them an opportunity of being heard and to place its decision in this regard before the Department of Personnel and Training.(III) By directing the Department of Personnel and Training to, immediately on receipt of decision from the Ministry of Home Affairs qua review of Recruitment Rules of respective Central Armed Police Forces, take necessary action thereon;(IV) By permitting the petitioners to make comprehensive representation(s) qua each Central Armed Police Force to the Department of Personnel and Training, qua the Cadre Review due in the year 2021 including as to the terms of reference if any thereof.(V) By directing the Department of Personnel and Training to ensure timely commencement of Cadre Review exercise due in the year 2021 and to, in the terms of reference qua Cadre Review for Central Armed Police Forces, consider incorporating the representation(s), if any, made by the members of each Central Armed Police Force, and the decision of the Ministry of Home Affairs qua the review of Recruitment Rules of each Central Armed Police For.(VI) By directing that the entire exercise aforesaid be concluded on or before 30th June, 2021.

Court's reasoning:
Prabodh Verma And Ors. vs State of Uttar Pradesh & Ors.[1984 (4) SCC 251 ] has been relied upon.In this Judgment, it has been, inter-alia held:-The real question before us, therefore, is the correctness of the decision of the High Court in the Sangh Case. Before we address ourselves to this question, we would like to point out that the writ petition filed by the Sangh suffered from two serious, though not incurable defects. The first defect was that of non-joinder of necessary parties. The only respondents to the Sanghs petition were the State of Uttar Pradesh and its concerned officers. Those who were vitally concerned, namely, the reserve pool teachers, were not made parties-not even by joining some of them in a representative capacity, considering that their number was too large for all of them to be joined individually as respondents. The matter, therefore, came to be decided in their absence. A High Court ought not to decide a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution without the persons who would be vitally affected by its judgment being before it as respondents or at least by some of them being before it as respondents in a representative capacity if their number is too large, and, therefore, the Allahabad High Court ought not to have proceeded to hear and dispose of the Sanghs writ petition without insisting upon the reserve pool teachers being made respondents to that writ petition, or at least some of them being made respondents in a representative capacity, and had the petitioners refused to do so, ought to have dismissed that petition for non-joinder of necessary parties.6. Similar view has been expressed by this Court in the case of A. Janardhana vs Union of India [1983 (3) SCC 601 ], though, in this case, a slightly different approach has been taken. It has been held in this authority:-It was contended that those members who have scored a march over the appellant in 1974 seniority list having not been impleaded as respondents, no relief can be given to the appellant. In the writ petition filed in the High Court, there were in all 418 respondents. Amongst them, first two were Union of India and Engineer-in-Chief, Army Headquarters, and the rest presumably must be those shown senior to the appellant. By an order made by the High Court, the names of Respondents 3 to 418 were deleted since notices could not be served on them on account of the difficulty in ascertaining their present addresses on their transfers subsequent to the filing of these petitions. However, it clearly appears that some direct recruits led by Mr Chitkara appeared through counsel Shri Murlidhar Rao and had made the submissions on behalf of the direct recruits. Further an application was made to this court by nine direct recruits led by Shri T. Sudhakar for being impleaded as parties, which application was granted and Mr P.R. Mridul, learned Senior Counsel appeared for them. Therefore, the case of direct recruits has not gone unrepresented and the contention can be negatived on this short ground. However, there is a more cogent reason why we would not countenance this contention. In this case, appellant does not claim seniority over any particular individual in the background of any particular fact controverted by that person against whom the claim is made. The contention is that criteria adopted by the Union Government in drawing up the impugned seniority list are invalid and illegal and the relief is claimed against the Union Government restraining it from upsetting or quashing the already drawn up valid list and for quashing the impugned seniority list. Thus the relief is claimed against the Union Government and not against any particular individual. In this background, we consider it unnecessary to have all direct recruits to be impleaded as respondents. We may in this connection refer to G.M., South Central Railway, Secundrabad v. A.V.R. Siddhanti. Repelling a contention on behalf of the appellant that the writ petitioners did not implead about 120 employees who were likely to be affected by the decision in the case, this court observed that [SCC para 15, p. 341 : SCC (L&S) p. 296] the respondents (original petitioners) are impeaching the validity of those policy decisions on the ground of their being violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The proceedings are analogous to those in which the constitutionality of a statutory rule regulating seniority of government servants is assailed. In such proceedings, the necessary parties to be impleaded are those against whom the relief is sought, and in whose absence no effective decision can be rendered by the court. Approaching the matter from this angle, it may be noticed that relief is sought only against the Union of India and the concerned Ministry and not against any individual nor any seniority is claimed by anyone individual against another particular individual and therefore, even if technically the direct recruits were not before the court, the petition is not likely to fail on that ground. The contention of the respondents for this additional reason must also be negatived.8. While dealing with the present set of applications, I am not examining the legality of the judgment assailed on the ground of non-joinder of necessary parties. The applicants have approached this Court for being heard on the conflict points involved in these petitions.9. In the event the petitions for Special Leave to Appeal are allowed and the plea of the petitioners for excluding deputationists from the senior administrative posts of the respective CAPFs eventually come to be accepted, it would obviously have an impact on the upper reaches of the service avenues of the IPS officers.Similar are the prayers in the other petitions for special leave to appeal. Before the High Court, the petitioners had mainly relied on an earlier decision of this Court in the case of Union of India vs Harananda [(2019) 14 SCC 126] . In this judgment, inter-alia, it was held that Railway Protection Force was to be constituted as Organised Group A Civil Service.But as I have already observed, by filing these applications, the applicants are volunteering their participation in these petitions to highlight their grievances. Thus the ratio of A. Janardhana (supra), which dealt with the aspects of leaving out a set of persons from whose interest could be affected by the outcome of a case, cannot be applied in this set of proceedings. The applicants claim for entry to these proceedings is founded on their possibility of being engaged on deputation to the senior administrative posts of CAPFs being adversely affected. Objections to their presence in these proceedings are mainly on two grounds. First is that the petitioners are questioning certain actions of the Government pertaining to clogging of promotional avenues of in-service officers of the CAPFs. In the event such plea of the petitioners is accepted by this Court, then the right of an IPS Officer to be in deputation will lapse or be largely impaired. Such deputation provisions do not originate from general principles of being placed on deputation, which is a recognized practise guiding organized services. Placing an IPS Officer on deputation in these Forces are integrally linked to the service rules of the respective Forces. Moreover, there is provision for deputation of IPS Officers as per the IPS Cadre Rules, 1954. Reference has been made to the schedule to Central Industrial Security Force (Group A Executive Cadre) Recruitment Rules, 2002, Rule 13 of the SSB Rules, 2009, schedule to the Central Reserve Police Border Force Group A General Duty Officers Recruitment Rules and Section 12 of ITBP Act, 1992 and schedule to the Border Security Force (Seniority, Promotion and Superannuation of Officers) Rules, 1978. These instruments provide for recruitment by deputation to the senior administrative posts of the CAPFs.12. Objection was made as regards as intervention of the Indian Police Service Central Association. The Association have not filed any application for impleadment or intervention before the High Court. I have referred to paragraph 13 of the impugned judgment in this regard. Their intervention was not allowed but they were heard. I further find from the judgment that they were actually heard. They have argued before me on the point of impleadment on the basis of having filed caveat application. But while as caveators they have the right of being notified of the lodging of the SLPs in terms of Clause 2 of Order XV of the Supreme Court Rules, 2013, mere filing of caveat application cannot grant them an entry into a Petition for Special Leave to Appeal. Filing of Caveat by itself does not entitle them to be treated as a party to the proceeding.