1. Above captioned review petitions seek review of the judgment and order dated 10th August, 2015 dismissing 24 writ petitions filed by the review petitioners and as a result upholding the decision passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Jodhpur Bench.
2. Review petitions have been filed with delays ranging from 33 days upto maximum of 435 days delay. Defects notified by the Registry have not been cured for over one year.
3. Be that as it may, we have heard learned counsel for the parties on merits.
4. Issue concerned was whether Mailman/Extra Departmental Agents/Gram Dak Sewaks appointed as a Sorting Assistant/Postal Assistant were liable to be treated as having been promoted or it was a case of direct recruitment. This in turn impacted the benefit of placement in the higher grade under the Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme. The view taken by the Central Administrative Tribunal is that it is a case of direct recruitment and not a case of promotion.
5. The writ petitions as noted hereinabove were dismissed.
6. Learned counsel for the respondents point out that similar is the view taken by the Division Bench of the Madras High Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 30629/2014, Union Of India v. D. Sivakumar against which decision SLP. (C) No. 4848/2016, Union Of India v. D. Sivakumar was dismissed by the Supreme Court on 16 August, 2016 after condoning the delay. Review sought of the order dated 16 August, 2016 vide Review Petition (C) No. 1939/2017 was dismissed by the Supreme Court as recently as on 13 September, 2017. Learned counsel further submit that even a Division Bench of the High Court of Karnataka in Writ Petition 200807/2016, The Union of India v. Shri Basanna Nayak has taken a similar view. Learned counsel for the respondents point out that in the Madras Circle and Karnataka Circle the decisions have been implemented.
7. Learned counsel for the review petitioner does not dispute aforesaid facts pertaining to the decisions of the Madras High Court and Karnataka High Court having attained finality on the same issue. The decision passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal brings out that Group-D employees, irrespective of their seniority participated in a merit based selection and appointed to the higher post were never treated as a case of promotion. The examination was not a Limited Departmental Qualifying Examination but was a Limited Departmental Competitive Examination. Before the MACP Scheme was introduced the department had a TBOP/BCR Financial upgradation Scheme and under the said Scheme benefit was granted treating the appointment as one of direct recruitment and not by way of promotion.
8. Thus we find no merit in the review petitions which are dismissed and since we are dismissing the review petitions on merits we are not going into the issue whether sufficient cause has been shown in the delay to be condoned.