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Amit Kanwar v. Union Of India

Central Administrative Tribunal

Jan 20, 2017

Judgment

Subsequent
References

CaseIQ

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Concise Analytical Summary of the Tribunal Opinion (Rajwant Sandhu, Member)

Factual and Procedural Background

The Original Application (O.A.) was filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 challenging an allocation notification dated 13.03.2015. The applicant sought quashing of that notification to the extent it allocated him to the Uttarakhand IFS cadre and allocated respondent No. 3 to the Himachal Pradesh (HP) IFS cadre, and alternatively a declaration that the applicant, on the basis of his merit and declared Home State, was entitled to allocation to the HP cadre.

Relevant factual chronology in the recorded material: the applicant cleared the IFS (Main) Examination, 2013 and in his detailed application declared his Home State (State of Domicile) to be Himachal Pradesh. The candidate who became respondent No. 3 had, in the UPSC application, declared Chandigarh/UT as his Home State but later — when asked by the Ministry for a specific “Home State” declaration (per DoPT/PMO directions) — was recorded as having declared Himachal Pradesh. The Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEF&CC) circulated cadre/category-wise vacancies for allocation; two vacancies were determined for Himachal Pradesh (one insider and one outsider). The applicant contended he was entitled to the insider HP vacancy by virtue of his HP domicile and merit position; he submitted representations to respondent No. 1 which were not ultimately effective in preventing the contested allocation.

Procedurally, pleadings were completed. At final hearing the applicant's counsel did not appear; Rule 15 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987 was invoked and the Tribunal decided the matter on the record after hearing respondents' counsel. The Tribunal ultimately rejected the O.A. and ordered no costs.

Legal Issues Presented

Whether the impugned notification dated 13.03.2015 which allocated the applicant to the Uttarakhand IFS cadre and respondent No. 3 to the Himachal Pradesh IFS cadre should be quashed or set aside.
Whether the applicant, on the basis of his merit and his declaration of Home State as Himachal Pradesh, was entitled to be allocated to the Himachal Pradesh IFS cadre (specifically to the insider vacancy) instead of the allocation made in the impugned notification.
Whether a candidate who has earlier declared a Home State (or State of Domicile) in the UPSC detailed application can subsequently change that declaration for purposes of cadre allocation and, if not, whether respondent No. 3's change of declared Home State (as alleged) was impermissible.

Arguments of the Parties

Applicant's Arguments

The applicant had declared Himachal Pradesh as his Home State/State of Domicile in the UPSC detailed application form and this declaration appears in the declared result list; therefore he ought to have been allocated to the Himachal Pradesh cadre against the insider vacancy.
Respondent No. 3 had originally declared Chandigarh/UT as his Home State in the UPSC application and thus could not validly change that declaration later to Himachal Pradesh to secure the insider allocation to HP.
The IFS Cadre Rules, 1966 and the existing cadre allocation policy do not permit a candidate to change an already-made declaration of State of origin/Home State; settled law, the applicant asserted, prevents a subsequent change.
The applicant submitted representations (14.02.2015 and reminder 04.03.2015) to respondent No. 1 detailing his grievance and alleged violation of cadre allocation rules, but respondent No. 1 issued the impugned notification without resolving those representations.

Respondent No. 1 (Ministry / Cadre Authority) — Main Contentions

Cadre allocation is governed by the Cadre Allocation Policy, 2008 and is performed on the basis of merit, preferences, and availability of vacancies in respective categories (insider/outsider and reserved/unreserved as applicable).
Following PMO directions and DoPT OM dated 12.09.2014, specific information regarding a candidate's “Home State” was solicited because the detailed UPSC application captures “State of Domicile” but not the separate “Home State” required for cadre determination; the Ministry acted in accordance with these instructions.
The applicant was an SC insider for Himachal Pradesh but for the 2014 batch there was no insider vacancy reserved for SC in Himachal Pradesh; therefore allocation of Himachal Pradesh to the applicant was not possible under extant rules.
The Ministry replied to the applicant's representation (letter dated 27.04.2015 was sent); allocation made based on information furnished by the selected persons and in accordance with applicable directions and policy, and thus no irregularity is shown in assigning respondent No. 3 to HP cadre.

Respondent No. 3 — Main Contentions

Respondent No. 3 was higher on the merit list (Sr. No. 51) than the applicant (Sr. No. 67). Allocation is influenced by merit ranking in addition to preference and vacancy availability.
Although respondent No. 3 had earlier indicated domicile as Chandigarh/UT (because of his father's employment), when required to indicate a specific “Home State” pursuant to DoPT/PMO direction, he declared Himachal Pradesh as his Home State and also indicated Himachal Pradesh as his first preference on the detailed form.
There were only two vacancies for Himachal Pradesh for that batch: one Unreserved (outsider) and one OBC (insider). Respondent No. 3 belonged to the OBC insider category; the applicant belonged to SC and there was no insider SC vacancy for HP; therefore even if the applicant claimed priority on other grounds, he could not be allocated the OBC insider vacancy.
The respondent cited settled Supreme Court authority (Union of India v. Rajiv Yadav, (1994) 6 SCC 38) for the proposition that a selected candidate may be considered for appointment but does not have a right to be allocated to a cadre of his choice or to his home cadre.

Table of Precedents Cited

Precedent	Rule or Principle Cited For	Application by the Court
Union of India v. Rajiv Yadav, IAS, (1994) 6 SCC 38	Principle that a selected candidate has a right to be considered for appointment to All India Services but has no right to be allocated to a cadre of his choice or to his home cadre.	The precedent was cited in the respondents' pleadings to underline that cadre allocation is not an entitlement of a candidate to his preferred/home cadre; the Tribunal's reasoning aligns with the same practical principle in concluding there was no entitlement warranting interference with the allocation made (the Tribunal relied on the DOPT/PMO direction and vacancy-reservation outcome rather than creating an allocation right for the applicant).

Court's Reasoning and Analysis

The Tribunal conducted a focused review of the pleadings and the material on record and proceeded as follows (as reflected in the opinion):

Examination of merit positions: the Tribunal noted the uncontroverted fact in the record that respondent No. 3 held a higher rank in the merit list (Sr. No. 51) than the applicant (Sr. No. 67).
Application of administrative directions: the Tribunal observed that in response to PMO directions, DoPT issued OM dated 12.09.2014 requiring that specific information/declarations regarding a candidate's “Home State” be gathered for cadre determination. The Ministry (MoEF&CC) sought this information from selected IFS candidates and made cadre allocations based on the information so furnished.
Assessment of allocation versus reservation: the Tribunal accepted the Ministry's account that the two vacancies for Himachal Pradesh (for the 2014 batch) were categorized such that one was for an insider in the OBC category and the other was for an outsider (unreserved). The applicant belonged to the SC category and there was no insider SC vacancy for HP in that batch; therefore even a declared Home State alone did not create a right for the applicant to occupy the insider OBC vacancy.
Conclusion on irregularity: having regard to the merit ranking, the DoPT/PMO direction and the information-based allocation carried out by the Ministry, the Tribunal found no irregularity in respondent No. 3 being allocated to the Himachal Pradesh cadre. Consequently, the applicant's claim for allocation to HP cadre did not succeed before the Tribunal.
Procedural point: the Tribunal also recorded that the applicant's counsel did not appear for final hearing; Rule 15 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules, 1987 was invoked, and the Tribunal proceeded to decide the matter on the record after hearing the respondents' counsel.

Holding and Implications

Holding: The Tribunal held that the Original Application has no merit and the same is rejected. (The order records "there is no merit in this O.A and the same is rejected. No costs.")

Implications:

Direct effect on the parties: the impugned cadre allocation (as notified on 13.03.2015) stands; the applicant's challenge to be reallocated to the Himachal Pradesh IFS cadre was dismissed.
No costs were awarded to either party by the Tribunal.
The opinion does not state or purport to lay down any new or broader legal precedent; it resolves the dispute on the basis of the facts, the administrative instructions (DoPT/PMO OM), applicable reservation/category-vacancy positions, and established principles concerning allocation entitlements.

This summary is prepared strictly from the content of the provided tribunal opinion and does not incorporate information beyond that opinion.

Show all summary ...

Rajwant Sandhu, Member:— The present O.A has been filed under Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985, seeking the following relief(s):—

(i) The impugned notification dated 13.3.2015 (Annexure A-1) issued by respondent No. 1 to the extent it allocates the applicant to the cadre of IFS of Uttrakhand and respondent No. 3 to the cadre of IFS of HP be quashed/set aside in the interest of justice.

(ii) It be declared that applicant on the basis of his merit and declaration of Home State is entitled to be allocated to the cadre of IFS of HP.

2. It is stated in the O.A that respondent No. 2 issued advertisement for holding examination for appointment to All India Services for the year 2013. Applicant successfully cleared the preliminary examination and thereafter on the basis of the merit was allocated to the Indian Forest Service for which the respondent No. 2 conducted Indian Forest Service (Main) Examination, 2013. The applicant submitted the prescribed detailed application form meant for IFS (Main), 2013 and declared himself to be the bonafide resident of Himachal Pradesh (Annexure A-4). Applicant declared his State of Domicile (Home State) as Himachal Pradesh. Similarly, other candidates declared their State of Domicile in the application form. The respondent No. 2 declared the result of IFS Examination, 2013 (2014 Batch) and in the result (Annexure A-5), the name of the applicant, who belongs to SC category, appears at Sr. No. 67 and his Home State is shown to be Himachal Pradesh. In the case of respondent No. 3 who belongs to OBC category, his Home State was declared and shown to be Chandigarh and his name appears at Sr. No. 51.

3. The respondent No. 1 vide letter dated 12.12.2014 (Annexure A-6), asked all 85 candidates recommended by UPSC for appointment to Indian Forest Services to furnish information in respect of their Home State/UT in the format enclosed along with the letter. Vide letter dated 03.02.2015 (Annexure A-7), the respondent No. 1 declared a list indicating the “Home State” as declared by the candidates and stated that the same would be treated as Home State for the purpose of cadre determination. To the great surprise and shock of applicant, the respondent No. 3 who had declared his Home State as Chandigarh/UT changed his declaration to that of Himachal Pradesh.

4. It is further stated that vide letter dated 04.02.2015 (Annexure A-8), the respondent No. 1 circulated cadre and category-wise distribution of vacancies to be filled on the basis of IFS Examination, 2013 including that two vacancies had been assigned for the State/Cadre of Himachal Pradesh, one for insider to be allocated to the candidates belonging to the domicile State and one for outsider, at Sr. No. 8. Since the applicant belongs to HP and was a permanent resident of HP, he is required to be allocated to the cadre of IFS of HP and the respondent No. 3 who does not belong to HP as per his declaration to the UPSC in the application form which was with regard to Chandigarh/UT, he cannot be considered against the vacancy determined for insider candidate as per IFS policy. There are no rules or instructions issued either by the DOPT or by the respondent No. 1 which permit a candidate to change his declared Home State. Even otherwise, it is settled law that a candidate who has already declared himself to be belonging to a particular state, cannot subsequently change the same. It goes without saying that either the first declaration of respondent No. 3 is false or second declaration of the respondent No. 3 is false.

5. It is further stated that the applicant submitted representation on 14.02.2015 to the respondent No. 1 (Annexure A-2) followed by reminder dated 04.03.2015 (Annexure A-2.A) giving details of his grievance and violation of cadre allocation rules. But, without responding to the representation of the applicant, respondent No. 1 issued the impugned notification dated 13.03.2015 whereby the applicant was allocated to Uttrakhand cadre and respondent No. 3 was allocated against the insider vacancy to Himachal Pradesh cadre. One Sh. Kunal Angrish was allocated against the outsider vacancy on the basis of his merit to Himachal Pradesh. Though, the respondent No. 3 is higher in merit to the applicant but since he does not belong to Himachal Pradesh as per his Home State of Chandigarh/UT declared to the UPSC, he cannot be allocated against the insider vacancy to Himachal Pradesh.

6. In the grounds for relief, it has, interalia, been stated as follows:—

(i) The IFS Cadre Rules, 1966 as amended from time to time nowhere permits respondent No. 1 to change the declaration already made with regard to declaration of state of origin/Home State. Once the respondent No. 3 himself declared his Home State as Chandigarh/UT and on the basis of the result declared by the respondent No. 2, the Home State of the respondent No. 3 was shown to be as Chandigarh/UT, therefore, he cannot be allowed to change the same later on to that of Himachal Pradesh and that too much to the disadvantage of applicant who duly declared his State of Domicile (Home State) as Himachal Pradesh.

(ii) Admittedly, the applicant having declared his Home State with the respondent No. 2 in the application form as well as to respondent No. 1 as Himachal Pradesh, he is entitled to be allocated to Himachal Pradesh against insider vacancy as per Cadre Allocation Policy - 2008 (CAP) issued vide OM No. 13011/22/2005-AIS (I) dated 10.04.2008 and IFS Cadre Rules, 1966.

(iii) It stands admitted by the respondent No. 1 in letter dated 12.12.2014 that all candidates recommended by UPSC for appointment to IFS are required to furnish information in respect of Home/State/UT in the prescribed format and on the basis of information provided by the candidates to UPSC in the detailed application form. It nowhere permits any candidate to change the already declared Home State and, therefore, on the basis of change of declared Home State at the cost of the applicant, the respondent no. 3 has been allocated to the cadre of HP, otherwise, the applicant on the basis of his merit would have been allocated against the insider vacancy to the IFS cadre of HP as two vacancies were determined for the examination of 2013 by respondent No. 1. Hence this OA.

7. In the written statement filed on behalf of respondent No. 1, it has been stated that the applicant as well as the third respondent are officers of 2013 IFS Exam (2014 batch). The applicant (67 in the merit list) is an SC candidate with his Home State as Himachal Pradesh and the third respondent (51 in the merit list) is an OBC candidate with Chandigarh as his Home State.

8. It is further stated that as per the cadre allocation policy, 2008 issued by DOPT, a candidate is allocated to his home cadre or any other cadre on the basis of his merit, preference and availability of vacancy in respective category etc. Home State declaration was called from candidates in accordance with DOPT OM dated 12.09.2014 and PMO's directions dated 01.09.2014, wherein, it was directed to gather specific information/declaration from candidates regarding their ‘Home State’ and then determine the cadres, since in the detailed application form, the details filled are ‘State of Domicile’ and not ‘Home State’. Accordingly, action was taken by the Ministry as per direction of PMO/DOPT which was in line with IAS/IPS. Regarding the contention of the applicant that he should be allocated Himachal Pradesh which is his Home State, it is stated that the applicant is an SC insider for Himachal Pradesh and there were only two vacancies for this State i.e one for unreserved outsider and one for OBC insider. Since there was no insider SC vacancy in Himachal Pradesh, therefore, allocation of Himachal Pradesh cadre to the applicant was not possible as per extant rules. The representation dated 14.02.2015 in this regard has been replied by the MoEF&CC vide letter No. 17015/01/2014-IFS-II dated 27.04.2015

9. No separate reply was filed on behalf of UPSC, respondent no. 2.

10. In the written statement filed on behalf of respondent No. 3, it has been stated that as per Cadre Allocation Scheme, 2008, issued by the Department of Personnel and Training, a candidate is allocated to his Home Cadre or any other cadre on the basis of his merit, preference and availability of vacancy in respective category etc. As far as merit is concerned, answering-respondent is at merit Sr. No. 51 as against the applicant, who is at Sr. No. 67. So far as preferences are concerned, even the UPSC in Col. 20 of the detailed application form had asked all the candidates to indicate order of preference of various State Cadre for which one would like to be considered with clear footnote that ‘it is clarified that as per present scheme of things as envisaged by the Cadre Allocation Policy, 2008, amended from time to time, if a candidate appointed to All India Services does not express his/her first preference to his/her Home Cadre, he/she shall not be considered for his/her home cadre at all. Accordingly, considering Himachal Pradesh as his Home State, the answering respondent had then indicated Himachal Pradesh as his first preference in the detailed application form itself.

11. It is further stated that there were only two vacancies for Himachal Pradesh State cadre out of which 1 was Unreserved (outsider) and 1 for OBC (Insider) category. Answering respondent belongs to OBC (Insider) category, whereas applicant belongs to Scheduled Caste category and there was no insider SC vacancy in Himachal Pradesh.

12. It is also stated that laws has been settled by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Union of India v. Rajiv Yadav, IAS, (1994) 6 SCC 38, ‘a selected candidate has a right to be considered for appointment to All India Services but he has no such right to be allocated to a cadre of his choice or to his home cadre’.

13. No rejoinder was filed on behalf of the applicant.

14. At the very outset, it will not be out of place to mention her that since counsel for the applicant was not present, Rule 15 of the CAT (Procedure) Rules 1987 was invoked and the following order was passed on 17.01.2017:—

“As is evident from the record that this Original Application (OA) was filed, as back as on 25.03.2015 in this Tribunal. The parties completed the pleadings on 10.12.2015 Thereafter, case was repeatedly adjourned for arguments on the one pretext or the other mostly attributable to the learned counsel for the applicant. Ultimately, this case was listed for final arguments for 16.01.2017, but the learned counsel for the applicant did not argue the matter.

As a consequence thereof, in the interest of justice, and at the request of learned counsel for the applicant, the hearing of the matter was deferred for today i.e 17.01.2017

Today, again arguing counsel is not present in the court to argue this old OA. Therefore, under these compelling circumstances, we have no option, but to decide this old matter, after going through the record and hearing the counsel for the respondents.”

15. Sh. R.K Sharma, learned counsel for the respondent No. 3 stated that for the appointments to be made on the basis of the 2013 Examination there were two vacancies of which one insider vacancy was reserved for OBC and the other vacancy was for the outsiders. The applicant belonged to the SC category and his Home State was Himachal Pradesh. Although respondent No. 3 had filled in his application form that his place of domicile was Chandigarh UT as the father of the applicant was employed here, but when the Department of Personnel directed the applicants for the IAS, IPS & IFS to indicate their Home States, the respondent No. 3 had declared his Home State to be Himachal Pradesh. On this basis, the applicant who belonged to the OBC category as per his certificate issued from Himachal Pradesh, and his merit position being 51, was allotted the Himachal Pradesh cadre. The applicant was lower in merit as he had the rank of 67. Even if the contention of the applicant were to be accepted that the Home State of respondent No. 3 was not Himachal Pradesh, but the applicant who himself belongs to the SC category, could not lay claim to the insider vacancy as the same was reserved for OBC.

16. Sh. Sanjay Goyal, learned counsel for respondent No. 1 concurred with the arguments put forth by Sh. R.K Sharma.

17. The pleadings of the parties and the material on record has been carefully perused. From the same, it is evident that the respondent No. 3 was higher in merit to the applicant as his own rank was 51 in the merit list while the rank of the applicant was 67. In response to PMO ID No. 600/50.C/2/2014-ES.2 dated 01.09.2014 on the subject of “Cadre allocation of candidates selected to the IAS on the basis of Civil Services Examination 2013”, the DOPT had issued OM No. 13018/4/2013-AIS.I. dated 12.09.2014 stating that specific information be gathered/declaration sought from the candidates regarding their Home State for determining cadres. The Ministry of Environment and Forests also sought this information from the persons selected through IFS 2013 Examination (2014 batch) and on the basis of the information furnished by the selected persons, the cadre allocation was made. Hence, there is no irregularity in the respondent No. 3 being allocated to the Himachal Prdesh Cadre of IFS, 2014 batch. The claim of the applicant for allocation to HP Cadre has in fact no leg to stand on as he belongs to the SC category, while for the 2014 batch, the insider vacancy in Himachal Pradesh was reserved for the OBC category.

18. In view of the foregoing discussion, we conclude that there is no merit in this O.A and the same is rejected. No costs.