INDRADEO PASWAN Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Leave granted.

(2.) The appellant was appointed initially as a District Mining Officer in the State of Bihar on 21.6.1983. On 21.3.1993, he was promoted to the post of Deputy Director (Mines) in the State of Bihar. According to him, on 6.3.1997, he was appointed on officiating basis as Additional Director (Mines). It is the further case of the appellant that the Departmental Promotion Committee had met on 2.6.1998 and had recommended the case of the appellant for promotion to the post of Additional Director (Mines). The appellant filed C.W.J.C. No. 5871 of 1998 in the High Court of Patna praying for the issue of a writ of mandamus directing the respondent therein, the authority concerned, to take a final decision with regard to the promotion of the appellant. The High Court by order dated 28.4.1999 allowed the Writ Petition and issued a direction to the respondent therein to consider the case of the appellant for promotion within a period of three weeks from the date of the judgment. Meanwhile, the State of Bihar was reorganized under the Bihar Reorganization Act, 2000. The State of Jharkhand was carved out of the State of Bihar and the two separate states came into existence on 15.11.2000. Anticipating the coming into force of the Act and the bifurcation of the State in terms of the Scheme adopted by the Act, the Central Government on 6.11.2000 provisionally allocated the services of the appellant to the State of Jharkhand as Additional Director (Mines). According to the appellant, he took charge of the post of Additional Director (Mines) in the State of Jharkhand on 14.11.2000.

(3.) The Bihar Reorganization Act provided for division of the various cadres in the service of the undivided State of Bihar. Under Section 72 (2) of the Act, the Central Government had to determine by special or general order, the successor State to which every person, who immediately before the appointed day was serving in connection with the affairs of the State of Bihar shall be finally allotted for service and the date with effect from which such allotment was to take effect, as soon as may be after the Reorganization Act came into force. The appointed day in terms of the Act was 15.11.2000. Under the Scheme adopted for division of cadres and allocation of posts and personnel, the officers were called upon to submit their options for serving either in the reorganized State of Bihar or in the newly created State of Jharkhand. Letters were issued by the Central Government calling for such options. The appellant gave his option indicating that he would like to be allocated to the State of Jharkhand. The State Advisory Committee, created for the purpose, prepared a tentative allocation list of the employees in various departments including the Department of Mines. Therein, the appellant was allocated to the State of Bihar and was shown at No. 1 in the seniority list of his Department. After the publication of the tentative allocation list dated 8.8.2001, the State Advisory Committee called for objections thereto. The appellant submitted an objection dated 3.10.2002 reiterating his preference to be allocated to the State of Jharkhand.