Authorities must decide pending MACP and NFSG representations by reasoned orders, without adjudicating their merits.

The applicants sought MACP and Non-Functional Selection Grade (NFSG) benefits, including pay fixation based on periods of notional promotion and arrears with interest.

They also sought a direction for the respondents to decide their pending representations. At the hearing, their counsel requested disposal of the OA on the limited basis of a direction to decide those representations, in light of judgments annexed to the OA. The respondents opposed the request but submitted that three months could be allowed for disposal.

1. Whether the respondents should be directed to consider and decide the applicants’ pending representations concerning MACP and NFSG benefits.

2. Whether the Tribunal should determine the applicants’ substantive entitlement to those benefits in this OA.

The order identifies no statute, regulation, or precedent as the basis for its decision.

The Tribunal made a case-specific procedural direction requiring the competent authority to consider the pending representations in light of the judgments annexed as Annexures A-25, A-26 and A-27, and to communicate a reasoned and speaking order within the stipulated period.

The Tribunal expressly did not decide the merits of the applicants’ claims.

In view of the applicants’ limited request for a decision on their representations, and the respondents’ submission that three months be allowed, the Tribunal disposed of the OA without examining whether the applicants were substantively entitled to MACP or NFSG benefits.

It directed the competent authority to consider the representations against the cited annexed judgments and issue a reasoned, speaking order.

The OA was disposed of without adjudication on the merits; pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were also disposed of, and the parties were left to bear their own costs.