Authorities Cannot Retain Figurative Assessment By RO When They Found His Box Grading Assessment As “Subjective” & “Inconsistent”: Delhi HC

The Court was hearing a Writ Petition filed by an officer of the Army Ordnance Corps who is presently serving in the rank of Brigadier and posted as the Head of, Faculty of Higher Ordnance Management, College of Material Management. He approached the Court assailing the Order passed by the Armed Forces Tribunal where the Tribunal has dismissed the Petitioner’s OA. The Petitioner has also challenged the Orders passed by the Respondents.

The bench of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Shalinder Kaur observed, “…once the respondents found the assessment by the RO in Box Grading as “subjective” and “inconsistent”, they could not have expunged only the Box Grading while retaining the figurative assessment by the RO.”

Senior Advocate Arvind Kumar Nigam appeared for the Appellant and CGSC Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar appeared for the Appellant.

Brief Facts-

The Petitioner in the present case is an Indian Army officer and achieved high-performance ratings throughout his career. Despite maintaining an "Outstanding" record, he faced downgrades in confidential reports (CRs) for periods April-August 2009 and July 2018-June 2019. These CRs impacted his chances for the National Defence College (NDC) and promotions, resulting in his non-selection. After a partial redressal that expunged one downgrade, the Petitioner was again denied selection due to the remaining CRs. The Armed Forces Tribunal upheld the decisions. Hence, he filed the Writ Petitions challenging the CRs.

The Court observed, “the respondents could not have expunged only the Box Grading given by the RO while maintaining the assessment of potential qualities of the petitioner reported figuratively in the said CR.”

The Court further noted that the respondents should have expunged the entire reporting made by the RO as some part of it admittedly being “subjective” would impact the career progression of the Petitioner. According to the Court in case, the assessment is not “balanced” and “consistent” the same cannot be relied upon as the basis for Petitioner’s promotion.

The Court said that while considering the “assessment variation”, the respondents had only taken into account a comparison between CR average variation with past OAP of the Petitioner, which admittedly is just one of the inputs and not the only input to decide on CR.

According to the Court the other parameters, which are equally important for making an assessment variation as mentioned in the guidelines, have not been considered by the Respondents.

Accordingly, the Court partly allowed the Petition.