The Delhi High Court dismissed a caveat application seeking intervention in a writ petition concerning DRDO and MES cadre disputes, holding the applicant lacked locus standi.
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W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 1 HIGH COURT OF DELHI Date of Decision: August 2, 2023
W.P.(C) 1473/2023, CAV 388/2023 GAGAN INDER WADHWA..... Petitioner Through: Ms. Gauri Puri and Ms. Aditi Gupta, Advs. Mr. Sunil K. Aggarwal, for Caveator
VERSUS
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS..... Respondents Through: Mr. Chetan Sharma, ASG with Mr. Apoorv Kurup, CGSC with Mr. Anshuman Singh, SPC with Mr. Ojaswa Pathak, Mr. Vikramaditya Singh, Mr. Amit Gupta, and Mr. R.V. Prabhat, Advs. for UOI
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE V. KAMESWAR RAO HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ANOOP KUMAR MENDIRATTA V. KAMESWAR RAO, J. (ORAL)
CAV 388/2023
JUDGMENT
1. This application / caveat has been filed by Mr. Sunil K. Aggarwal with the following prayers:-
“I. CAVEATOR prays that the caveator in person be heard on merit and CAVEAT / intervention be allowed on the grounds stated as above and the caveator be allowed to file detailed submissions / evidence if the Hon’ble Court may so please. W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 2
II. Hon’ble bench shall most graciously be please to appreciate that the caveator has locus standii in the matter and the CAVEATOR is an adversely affected disadvantaged person as the WRIT involves dispute over certain posts in DRDO which are MES cadre posts and neither party is entitled to hold the posts in dispute and are unlawfully usurping the civil posts and misappropriating Public funds as brought out in the grounds para above. Therefore the facts need to be established and intervention of the caveator be permitted and the CAVEAT be allowed in public interest.
III. Caveator be allowed inspection of the case records in WP C 1473/2023 as filed by both the parties.
IV. Caveator prays that all concerned constitutional authorities CGDA and CAG CVC and UPSC, DoPT etc be issued judicial notice to file their briefs in the the matter and the briefs so filed be taken into consideration before deciding the WRIT as deciding the WRIT will be a stamp of bonafide to the illegal and treacherous designs of DRDO to tamper with the organisation of the MoD and misappropriate the public funds/MoD grants under head-capital works.
V. Hon'ble court shall most graciously take note that MES cadre has been unlawfully usurped by the Army through illegal promulgation of SRO 19 E under s 192 of the Army Act 1950. The regulations are subjudiced in the courts on grounds of constitutional Ultra Vires. Through Army usurpation MES has been relegated under the Army while MoD constituents have created their parallel construction cadres which is derogation of the constitution and a funeral of the MES cadre lawfully appointed but under Army hijack. This conspiracy of the Army in collusion with the W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 3 contractors lobbies and land Mafia etc needs to be investigated.
VI. Issues of the instant WRIT have a bearing on the issues that are subjudiced in WPC 4859/2016 and therefore the CAVEATOR prays that this WRIT be tagged with WPC 4859/2016 to be heard and decided together to avoid disparate judgments and the resultant chaos as the issues have never been adjudicated integratedly resulting in multiple conflicting judgments.
VII. Any other relief as may be deemed appropriate.
2. In effect, the applicant is seeking his impleadment in the writ petition.
3. At the outset, we may state here that, the above writ petition has been filed by the petitioner Gagan Inder Wadhwa, with the following prayers:- “In light of the above, the Petitioner respectfully prays that this Hon’ble Court be graciously pleased to: (a) Issue a Writ of Certiorari or any other Writ/ Order/ Direction thereby setting aside the Order dated 28.09.2021 passed by the Hon’ble Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi in O.A. 1710/2021 titled as “Davender Pal Makkar & Anr. Vs. Union of India & Ors; Consequently, (b) Pass an Order allowing the Original Application No.1710/2021 titled as “Davender Pal Makkar & Anr. Vs. Union of India & Ors”; W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 4 c) Pass any other order as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit towards securing the ends of Justice.”
4. The submission of Mr. Aggarwal seeking his impleadment is that he was an Officer of MES under the Ministry of Defence. The DRDO, which is part of the Ministry of Defence cannot have a separate cadre.
5. A perusal of the application filed by him also reveals, the following:-
“1. BECAUSE prima facie the WPC 1473/2023 appears to be a fraudulent petition filed before DHC through unholy collusion between the petitioner's and the respondents as DRDO is not mandated to have any cadre of construction engineers / Chief Technical Examiners as per the allocation of business rules of the GOI issued under art 77 of the constitution of India. Works related to Army Navy Airforce DRDO and Ordnance factories is the business of Department of Defence. 2. BECAUSE cadre MES was created as per the MES class 1 RPS rules 1949. Engineers in the MES are recruited through the UPSC ever since 1949 and MES is a strong cadre of over a 1000 class 1 Engineers who have been executing all capital works for the ARMY NAVY Air Force DRDO and ordnance Factories ever since 1949 and the infrastructure exists on ground and is verifiable and MES has annual budgets exceeding 45000 crores and constructs Airforce Hangers / Airports Naval Dockyards ordnance factories Technical / residential Buildings paid out of the MoD budgets. 3. BECAUSE there already exists a Chief Engineer formation in the MoD establishment to take
W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 5 care of all capital works pertaining to DRDO. It is through conspiracy of some contractors, feckless secretary MoD and Army usurpers that DRDO has created a cadre of Construction Engineers possibly President Abdul Kalam had a bias for DRDO where he worked earlier. It is pertinent to point out that US Export Control Regime had imposed sanctions on DRDO and DRDO scientists have been indicted / charged for spying for ISI Pakistan in recent past. DRDO construction cadre rules were promulgated in 2000 without observing the due procedure of creation of posts and framing of RR under Art 309 (DoPT/UPSC has detailed statutory procedures as to how the posts have to be created and how the RR have to be framed and promulgated but DRDO has been flouting all the constitutional procedures of the UNION and DRDO is an UPSC consultation exempted organisation and scientists are not civil post holders of the UNION responsible for pecuniary interests of the UNION). DRDS 1979 is a cadre of scientists only and DRDS posts are not group A central civil posts but a cadre of scientist "B" to scientist "F" and this cadre is exempted from UPSC consultation and this cadre is not mandated to handle the Defence Accounts, Defence Estates and Defence Capital works, construction and property accounting for which separate cadres of IDAS/CGDA IDES/DGDE and MES/DGW exist which are the Group A/class 1 cadres of GOI consisting of civil posts and their appointment is regulated through the UPSC.
4. BECAUSE Army has criminally usurped the MES cadre and unlawfully relegated MES as a subordinate service to the Army through fabricated British time archives and the Army is not placing those fabricated archives like RMES in public domain/before courts for judicial scrutiny. MES can not be a subordinate to the Army as MES is directly under DoD/ Secretary and has equal relation with Army, Airforce, W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 6 Navy and Wings of MoD. Certain Army elements under ISI influence / hangover of the British Raj has been unlawfully /secretly/corruptly hijacking MES/DGDE and issuing NOC to various MoD Wings in connivance with the contractors lobbies land mafias authorising them to undertake their own constructions as was done by the ARMY in Adarsh Housing Scam where the Army usurped the powers of the DEO and issued NOC and the Army Generals have been indicted of criminal charge by the courts. Recent war memorial construction at India Gate paid out of Defence budgets has probably not been constructed through MES and makes out a case for investigation and accountablity but the records are not in public domain.
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5. BECAUSE Property of DRDO defacto remains the property of GOI/central government and is accounted by DAD and the property is borne on the MES books/ records that are subjected to CGDA and CAG audits. Just like the DRDO cannot create a cadre for the account service and the Estates service the same manner DRDO cannot create its own cadre for the Construction/works services as the cadre already exists ever since 1949 and no two parallel cadres can be created by GOI. One cadre CPWD is created for central other than Defence and one cadre MES is created for Central Defence. DRDO is not a body corporate and is not vested with any property, DRDO is just and organisation of the scientists that work in the Central Government /MoD labs and the property of the central Govt labs like SSPL / INMAS / DIPAS does not vests in the Scientists / Directors but vests in the Executive Engineers of the MES cadre under Art 299.
6. BECAUSE it is flagrant and naked fraud by the Central Government to appoint MES cadre constitutionally every year through UPSC ever since 1949 and then leave the cadre parentless under neglect W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 7 in the illegal confines/hijack of the Army elements out of sheer ignorance /incompetence of the political masters and also the Bureaucrats who hardly understand the structure of MoD. Army is criminally blocking all channels of communication of the MES cadre and committing a genocide of the cadre under the confines of the incompetent jilted frustrated Army who is illegally depriving the cadre its due place in the MoD organogram. And blocking DoPT /UPSC communication and depriving deputations through central staffing scheme. This constitutionally appointed cadre of MES is the victim of the politician Ministers ignorance /apathy incompetency and corruption and the cadre was illegally subordinated to the Army ever since 1965 war when the records were tampered by the Army elements in the garb of WAR. MES cadre under the Army hijack has no option than to become selfish and corrupted or commit suicide with the result Defence readiness of Airforce and Navy has suffered and there are not enough Runways/ Hangers for the Airforce and the while China has build up Naval dockyards around the worls India could make none as the Army elements have destroyed the MES organisation for its selfish motives: There have been parliamentary committees like MES review Committees 1957 etc whose findings landed in the wrong ISI /antinational hands and the recommendations were not were placed in public domain nor implemented and gathered dust in archives and no effort was made by the executive for 70 long years and when every thing collapsed the GOI has resorted to a clandestine reorganisation of the MoD structure and created DMA etc by passing the legislature in the garb of COVID. DMA creation is without thorough think tank research is a desperate attempt of the GOI to save itself from the embarassment if the issues get raked up in parliament which is a sleeping /uninformed institution, DMA /CDS issues are contentious as the falsehood is being covered W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 8 up and the legal, financial and accounts/audit conflicts that have arisen are being settled through influenced judicial orders in utmost secrecy and the public nor the parliament has has any inkling of the over night mutation of the MoD machinery under the dictates of the Contractors lobbies/Arms trade Corporate Mafias working in CAHOOT. Parallel establishments are being created fecklessly/most irresponsibly/unlawfully without due notice to stake holders pre existing cadres and giving opportunity to the pre existing cadre to migrate to the new cadre. As such no planned reoraganisation of the GOI/ MoD machinery has ever been attempted since 1950 with the result the GOI machinery and organisation has collapsed beyond repair and the GOI is doing peacemeal patch work fraught with inherent contradictions and there is omnipresent anarchy and chaos be it Legislature, Judiciary or Executive. Every public functionary is just safe gaurding his own survival and resorting to most selfish opportunist loot. The constitutional institutions UPSC,CAG, CGDA, CVC, The PRESS have been crippled/stifled and a sort of unwritten emergency is under imposition and the incompetent beaureaucracy/judiciary has been either purchased or gagged under the threat of pay/pension stops if at all they expose the systemic flaws of the GOI.
7. BECAUSE the constitutional bodies CGDA and CAG CVC and UPSC have no inkling as to what goes on in DHC as the very handling of the Court cases by MoD is flawed. Brief's from the constitutional bodies need to be called through judicial notice and taken into consideration before deciding the WRIT as deciding the WRIT will be a stamp of bonafide to the illegal and trecherous designs of DRDO to misappropriate the public funds of MoD grants for capital works. These public funds for property contracts can only be expensed through the civil posts holders duly W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 9 authorised by the President under Art 299 of the constitution. It is pertinent to point out that Justice Mendiratta has been at the helm of Art 299 notifications issued by the MoLJ when he held the post of Secretary before being appointed as the Judge DHC and it is expected that Justice Mendiratta shall critically examine the issue from the conspiracy angle to logical conclusions.
8. BECAUSE the caveator had encountered the orgnisational fraud /aberration in MoD in 1989 itself when he served in the MES and had occasion to inspect the DRDO establishments in Delhi Caveator had fairly good idea as to what DRDO was and that there is a Chief Engineer already existing in the MES for DRDO construction and property management. Caveator could not tolerate the favoured treatment to usurpers/conspirators while the caveator was a living victim of the conspiracy. The caveator therefore made a mention before the bench that the caveator be allowed inspection of the records of the case as the caveator plan to intervene in public interest and has no means to know the facts of the case as the case records are not in public domain. But petitioners request was declined hence the CAVEAT is filed for urgent and immediate intervention.”
6. Having heard Mr. Aggarwal and learned counsel for the parties, we are of the view that the present application is totally misconceived. Mr. Aggarwal is nowhere related to the issue raised by Mr. Wadhwa in the writ petition. Merely because Mr. Aggarwal was an employee of the MES, would not mean that he is in any way connected with the issue raised by Mr. Wadhwa in the writ petition. W.P.(C) 1473/2023 Page 10
7. It may be stated, any order passed in the writ petition shall not affect Mr. Aggarwal. We may also note, Mr. Aggarwal has initiated separate proceedings in this Court, challenging the order of the Tribunal wherein he has challenged his removal from service as an employee of the MES in the Ministry of Defence.
8. The application / caveat stands dismissed.
V. KAMESWAR RAO, J
ANOOP KUMAR MENDIRATTA, J AUGUST 02, 2023
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