1. On March 12, 1985 a three Judge Bench of this Court delivered judgment in two cases : (1) Karam Pal v. Union of India and (2) H. V. Pardasani v. Union of India. These decisions related to the working out of the Central Secretariat Service Rules of 1962 and dealt with the dispute of inter se seniority between direct recruits and promotees in the Central Secretariat Service. It is not disputed that while deciding these cases, this Court took into account the position, as it is existed up to 1983. In one of the judgments the court indicated that the Central Government would do well to streamline the scheme by review of the rules and regulations in order to avoid rancour and hear-burning in the officers. Pursuant to these observations of the Court, on December 29, 1984, a set of amendments were brought to the Rules and the scheme has been streamlined. These rules of 1984 December were made effective from July 1, 1985


2. In spite of the decisions of this Court referred to above, some of the promotee officer in this cadre went before the Central Administrative Tribunal raising a fresh dispute on what may be said to be a covered field. The Tribunal had the handicap of the binding judgment in the field yet on the basis of materials placed before it, it came to conclusions partly different from what had been reached by this Court and rendered a judgment which is impugned before us in this group of cases


3. We have heard parties at considerable length in the month of January this year and thereafter when we were satisfied that the representation made to this Court on the earlier occasion that there existed a seniority list was perhaps not correct, we called upon the Union of India to draw up such a list and for that purpose we adjourned the proceedings for a considerable period of time, it is not disputed that with the assistance of both the sides such a list has now been drawn up


4. We have again heard counsel appearing on the two sides and even allowed oral arguments to be addressed by an intervenor in person. This Court has repeatedly noticed the fact that public officers are more in court than in their offices. With a view to doing complete justice to the matter and being assured by counsel on either side and the representatives who have filled our court hall that if a seal be given to this litigation, our expectation that government business shall now to be carried on and not litigation hereafter, we have agreed to make this further order providing certain guidelines for updating/modifying the list which was drawn up as referred to above


5. We are of the opinion that with a view to doing complete justice to the situation, the December 1984 Rules should be made operative from July 1, 1984 instead of July 1, 1985. These Rules have now a limited provision of carry-forward of vacancies to be filled up by direct recruits and that is a two year period. The entitlement to substantive recruitment to the cadre is on an eight year period of qualifying service. Entitlement as qualified officers in the field is one matter and recruitment into the cadre on substantive basis is another. It may be noted that 20 per cent is reserved for the direct recruits and the remainder is available to the promotees


6. We do not consider it appropriate to dispose of the matter now and leave the litigant again to come in some form. Therefore, we adjourn these proceedings by two months and require the Union Government to update/modify the list scrupulously following every p

rovision of the relevant rules and the regulations and place the list for consideration of the court on the adjourned date. A copy of the list as prepared may be served on counsel for either side a week in advance so that they would be in a position to make their representations on that date7. These matters are adjourned to September 12, 1990 to be called as the first case of the day for hearing.