Courts Can't Interfere In Assessment By Reporting Officer In Absence Of Bias Or Prejudice Against Employee:Delhi High Court

Background

The Petitioner, an employee of the Central Soil & Mineral Research Station filed seven Original Applications challenging his 'Annual Confidential Reports' for seven years before the Central Administrative Tribunal. Initially, the Petitioner had made representations against these ACRs, however, the same were rejected on 5 August 2011 and 29 December 2011. The Petitioner also challenged the rejection of his representation along with two subsequent communications dated 28 December 2012 and 25 February 2014 before the Tribunal. As per the Petitioner, adverse remarks were passed against him in the ACRs and the same deserved to be quashed. The Counsel for the Petitioner contended that the Petitioner made representations challenging the downgrading of his grades. As per the Petitioner, initially the remarks were “Very Good” and before downgrading the same to 'good', the Petitioner was not asked to take any corrective measures to improve his performance. Pertinently, the remarks, 'very good' were a requirement for further promotion. The Counsel for the Petitioner relied on the decision in State of UP v Yamuna Shankar Mishra in this regard.

Furthermore, it was stated that the downgrading of the Petitioner's remarks was legally not sustainable because the reviewing officer was specialized in Civil Engineering while as the Petitioner was an Electronics Engineer.

On the other hand, the Order rejecting the Petitioner's representations stated that the reviewing officer was not necessarily required to belong to the same field and was competent enough to perform the duties he was assigned. It was further stated that the Petitioner had not been able to substantiate his claims with concrete evidence.

Before the Tribunal, the Petitioner challenged the ACRs for each year, however, the Tribunal dismissed the Original Applications on 28 March 2019 stating that it was not necessary to furnish a warning or reprimand the Petitioner before grading him as 'Average' as per the Office Memorandum dated 05.06.1981. The Petitioner Approached the High Court challenging this decision. The Court set aside the Tribunal's decision and passed a judgment directing the Tribunal to consider the Applications afresh. The Court criticized the Tribunal's findings to an extent of having restricted its examination to a single issue and hence remanded the matter to the Tribunal for consideration of the issue on merits.

On 12 September 2019, the Tribunal dismissed the Original Applications.

Hence, the Petitioner approached the High Court again.

Findings of the Court

The Court considered two main issues to arrive at a conclusion.

• Whether the gradings and the observations contained in the ACRs, as entered by the Reporting and reviewing officers, were sustainable in law.
• Whether communication of the ACRs was necessary, before they were taken into consideration by any Committee while assessing the petitioner's case for promotion.

The Court relied on several decisions including Vijay Kumar v State of Maharashtra, S Ramachandra Raju v State of Orissa, M.A. Rajasekhar v State of Karnataka, State Bank of India v Kashinath Kher, Sukhdeo v Commissioner Amaravati Division, State of U.P. v Yamuna Shanker Misra and many others and held that although the courts had to give weightage to the views of officers, certain guidelines and parameters were to be followed by the officers while writing the reports. It was observed that if there are starkly inconsistent remarks, it could be inferred that such remarks were deliberately made due to bias against the officer. Moreover, the Bench noted that absolute objectivity and complete absence of bias or prejudice are vital elements and were to be considered by the reporting officer as well as reviewing officers. Moreover, before passing adverse remarks on the basis of information which is not part of the record, the reporting officer should share the information, with the officer, confront him with it, so that he is given an opportunity to improve, the Court observed. It was stated that the reviewing officer cannot downgrade the overall grading granted by the reporting officer, without reasons.

Considering these principles, the Court perused the record concerning the grades assigned to the Petitioner in his ACRs in each year and observed that there was no reason for the Court to interfere in the way the Petitioner had been grading for certain years as no manifest bias or prejudice could be evidenced from the record. The Bench held that the gradings were based on the remarks contained in the ACRs and were majorly dependent on the performance of the Petitioner which was not up to the mark as per the ACRs. Moreover, it was not important to reprimand the Petitioner or inform him about the grades beforehand as the record suggested that his performance was not at par with the requirement as was suggested by the remarks in the ACRs, the Court held.

However, it was held that the Petitioner was entitled to be graded “very good” for the year 2001-2002 because the Reviewing Officer had not provided any reasons as to why the Petitioner's grades were changed from 'very good' to 'good and even the remarks made by the Reviewing Officer were contradictory as despite agreeing with the remarks entered by the Reporting Officer in the ACR, the grade was brought down. The Court considered the remarks of the Reporting Officer as entered in the ACR and noted that the Officer deserved a 'very good' grading for the said year.

For the year 2004-2005, the Court held that the Reviewing Officer had given the Petitioner an adverse grading of 'average' without even assigning any reasons for the same despite agreeing with all other entries made by the Reporting Officer. Therefore, citing the decision in Tarsem Kumar v UOI, the Court held that the Petitioner was to be served a notice before bringing his grade down to 'average' so that he could explain as to why his grades should have remained unchanged. Accordingly, it was held that the petitioner was entitled to be graded as “good”, as awarded by the Reporting Officer.

Concerning the grades in the remaining ACRs for years 2003-2004, 2005-2006, 2006-2007, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, it was held that there was no reason for the Court to interfere with the findings of the Reporting and Reviewing Officers. The grading for the year 2003-2004 was upheld by the Court as no bias on part of the Reporting Officer could was indicated in the ACR for the said year. For the years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007, the Court observed that no interference was required as the entries in the ACRs for these two years suggested that the performance of the Petitioner did not match the required standard compared to the earlier years. For the year 2007-2008, the downgrading from “very good” to 'good' was also upheld considering the Reviewing Officer's remarks that the Petitioner being an IT professional should have developed some software for day to day use of office. Therefore, it was observed that the Reviewing Officer's remarks and grading with respect to the Petitioner's ACR could not be interfered with as it suffered from no infirmity. Moreover, it was stated that while changing the grade from 'very good' to 'good', it was not required for the Petitioner to be given a notice or prior opportunity to explain as to why the grades should not have been brought down. In connection with the year 2008-2009, the Court observed that the petitioner was graded as "good" by both the reporting and reviewing officers which was consistent with the remarks in the ACR. Therefore, the Court refused to interfere in the same considering additionally that the grading for the said year was the same as that of the previous year's average grading.

Accordingly, the writ petition was partly allowed, with no costs.

Case Title: Aabi Binju versus Union of India

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 319

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. K.L. Manhas, Advocate

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. Shoumendu Mukherji, Sr. Panel Counsel with Ms. Megha Sharma, Mr. Arya Jha and Mr. Aniruddha Ghosh, Advs.

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