ARATI RAY CHOUDHURY Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, Shrimati Arati Ray Choudhary, is a permanent employee in the South Eastern Railway - a Government of India undertaking - which runs two Higher Secondary Schools for girls one at Adra and the other at Kharagpur. Broadly stated, the question which we have to decide in this petition under Article 32 of the Constitution is whether the vacancy in the post of the Headmistresss of the Kharagpur School can be treated as being reserved for a Scheduled Caste candidate, a question which depends for its decision both on the interpretation and the validity of the 'Carry forward' rule. THE petitioner assails that rule and contends that the vacancy is open to all candidates while respondent No. 8, who belongs to Scheduled Caste, contends for a contrary position.

(2.) IN August 1966 a vacancy arose in the post of the Headmistress of the Adra School and was filled up on the footing that it was unreserved. The Headmistress of the Kharagpur school was due to retire with effect from 1/01/1969 and therefore on 5/12/1968 the Railway administration formed a panel of candidates for selection to that post and fixed 18/12/1968 as the date for holding interviews. The names of four Assistant Mistress called for selection were arranged in the panel seniority-wise, the petitioner occupying the top place and respondent No. 8 the third place. The meeting of the 18th was sayed by the Calcutta High Court in a Writ Petition (Civil Rule No. 2117 (W) of 1968) brought by respondent No. 8 for readjustment of her seniority. On 28/12/1968 the petitioner was asked to take over charge of the post and on 4/01/1969 she was promoted to officiate as a Head-mistress, "purely on local stop-gap basis", and on the express condition that the promotion will not confer upon her any right or title to the post.

(3.) RESPONDENT No. 8 filed three contempt petitions, one after another, against the Railway administration for their failure to comply with the directions issued by the Calcutta High Court in Writ Petition No. 499 of 1969. In the first of these petitions (Civil Rule No. 4014-W of 1971) a Division Bench of the High Court, by its Judgment of 7/06/1972, asked the Railway administration to comply within a period of three months with the directions issued earlier by the High Court by asking the petitioner to appear before the Selection Board. The learned Judge however made it clear that the Selection Board would be at liberty to consider the suitability of the petitioner. Whether such a clarification would be made in the contempt petition filed by respondent No. 8 is open to doubt, but nothing really turns on it. The course which the other two contempt petitions took is also not relevant for the purpose of the present petition.