PRAFULLA KUMAR DAS Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) -Validity of S. 2 of the Orissa Administrative Service, Class II (Appointment of Officers Validation) Amendment Act, 1992 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) is in question in this writ petition and appeal. The appeal arises out of a judgment and order dated 23-4-1991 passed by the Orissa Administrative Tribunal at Bhubaneswar in Transferred Application No. 402 of 1986. In the said application, the appellants herein, inter alia, prayed for a direction upon respondents Nos. 1 to 3 to fix their seniority by placing them above the private respondents and grant consequential career benefits to them. In the writ petition also, the petitioners have prayed for quashing of the Orissa Administrative Service Class II (Appoitnment of Officers Validation) Amendment Ordinance, 1992, which is subsequently replaced by the Act, as also for a declaration that the said Ordinance (Act) is inapplicable in the case of the petitioners and in any event the same cannot be applied retrospectively.

(2.) The basic dispute between the parties revolves round the concept of year of allotment as envisaged in the Act. The question came up for consideration before the Full Bench of the Orissa High Court in Ananta Kumar Bose vs. State of Orissa (AIR 1986 Orissa 151) wherein the principle of year of allotment, as also its application in relation to the parties thereto was upheld. The said decision of the Orissa High Court came up for consideration in Nityananda Kar vs. State of Orissa (1990) 2 Suppl. SCR 644 and a three-Judge Bench affirmed the views taken by the Orissa High Court.

(3.) By virtue of S. 2, the Orissa Administrative Service, Class II (Appointment of Officers Validation) Act, 1987 ("Validation Act"), is sought to be amended such that certain direct recruits of the Orissa Administrative Service for the year 1973, who were, however, appointed in 1975, are accorded a relative seniority with respect to those merger recruits who were born in the said service by virtue of the prior merger of their parent cadre, the Orissa Subordinate Administrative Service ("O.S.A.S.") with the O.A.S., Class II ("O.A.S. II") on December 21, 1973.