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1980 (4) TMI 301 - SC - Income TaxRecruitment procedure - scheme of reorganisation of the Services - quota system - Held that:- It is necessary to recall that for nearly a decade after 1950, appointments of promotes were made far in excess of the quota available to them. So long as the quota rule operated, it was possible to regularize their appointments when posts within their quota became available in later years. But a somewhat unprecedented ed situation arose by the upgrading of Class II posts to Class I, Grade II,- 100 of the month January 16, 1959 and 114 on December 9, 1960. This massive upgrading of posts brought about a collapse of the quota rule. Subsequent absorption in posts which become available for being filled up later really means regularization of appointments, which is possible provided there is no excessive deviation from the quota rule. We quite appreciate that no blame can be laid at the doors of the promotes on the score that they were appointed in excess of the quota available to them. Perhaps, their appointments must even have enabled the administration to tide over administrative stalemate. But the tough problem which the administration has to face is that whereas it is necessary to recognize and protect the claims of promotes who are appointed in excess of their quota, it is equally necessary to ensure that the direct recruits do not suffer an undue set back in service on account of the excessive appointments of promotes. The conflicting claims of the two components of Service, both having an importance of their own, have therefore to be reconciled. It was with that object that the rules have been modified from time to time. The judgments rendered by this Court in matters which the petitioners want to be reopened show, without a shadow of doubt, how every effort was made to ensure that no hardship or injustice is caused to the promotes merely because their appointments exceeded their quota. The Court adopted what it considered in the circumstances to be a satisfactory and scientific method of ascertaining the number of vacancies available for being filled up. It came to the conclusions that the number; of actual appointments should determine the number of vacancies available which, with great respect, was a perfectly legitimate conclusion to draw. In the grey area where service rules operate, more than one view is always possible to take without sacrificing either reason or commonsense but the ultimate choice has to be necessarily conditioned by several considerations ensuring justice to as many as possible and injustice to as few. We also find it impossible to hold that there was any error in the conclusions in Jaisinghani (1967 (2) TMI 30 - SUPREME Court) that rule 4 of the Recruitment Rules was a statutory rule. Subsequent decisions would show that there was hardly any dispute between the parties, at later stages at any rate, that rule 4 was a statutory rule. Appeal dismissed.
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