ARUN RANJAN MUKHERJEE Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This Appeal is by certificate against the judgment of a Division Bench of the Calcutta High Court dismissing the application by the Appellant under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The Appellant who is an Indian Police Service Officer holding a senior post in that service made an application to fix his year of allotment in the service which the Government of India ultimately fixed as 1947. With this fixation the Appellant is aggrieved.

(2.) The brief facts which may be necessary for consideration of the matters in issue are that the Appellant was commissioned as an Officer of the Indian Army on the 12th April 1942. He was promoted to the rank of a Major on or about 1st April 45. On 10-1-49 the State of West Bengal feeling the need of a Bengali Officer to serve in the Special Armed Police requested the Army for the services of the Appellant which the Ministry of Defence agreed to lend. The Appellant was relieved from the Army and posted as a Commandant of the Special Armed Police Battalion on 10-1-49, which post corresponded to a senior post in the Indian Police Service. There is no dispute that his services were lent and that he took charge on the 10th January 49 or that the post of a Commandant in the Special Armed Battalion was in the senior scale of Indian Police Service.

(3.) While serving in this capacity the Government expressed a clear to absorb him and on the Appellant's showing his willingness to be so absorbed he was appointed to the West Bengal State Police Service on 1-7-1953. On the 8th September 1954 the Indian Police service (Recruitment) Rules, 1954 Indian Police Service (Cadre) Rules, 1954 and Indian Police Service (Regulation of Seniority) Rules 1954 were framed by the Government of India under sub-section (1) of Section 3 of All India Services Act LXI of 1951 (hereinafter called "the Recruitment Rules", "the Cadre Rules" and "the Seniority Rules" respectively) . On 6th June 1955 the Indian Police Service (Appointment by Promotion) Regulation 1955, were also issued under which 25 per cent of the senior posts were allotted to the Indian Police Service Cadre in each State. It is also not disputed that the appointment of the Appellant was outside the 25 per cent quota. On 31st July 1958, the Appellant was appointed on probation in the State Cadre of West Bengal. On 8th/17th December 1959 he was substantively appointed to a senior post in the Indian Police Service and confirmed thereon with effect from 21st July 1958. On the 19th December 1958 the Ministry of Home Affairs, New Delhi, by its letter to the Chief Secretary to the Government of West Bengal conveyed its decision to fix the pay of the Appellant in the senior scale of the Indian Police Service notionally from 10-1-1949 the date from which he held an Indian Police Service Cadre post continuously.