RAJASTHAN STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD JAIPUR Vs. MOHAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) . (On behalf of Subba Rao. C. J., Shelat and Mitter, JJ.): The appellant in this appeal is Electricity Board of Rajasthan, Jaipur (hereinafter referred to as "the Board"), a body corporate constituted on 1st July 1957, under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1948 (No. 54 of 1948). Before the constitution of the Board, the supply of electricity in the State of Rajasthan was being controlled directly by a department of the State Government named as the Electrical and Mechanical Department. Respondent No. 1, Mohan Lal, as well as respondents 4 to 14 were all permanent employees of the State Government holding posts of Foremen in the Electrical and Mechanical Department. On the constitution of the Board, the services of most of the employees, including all these respondents, were provisionally placed at the disposal of the Board by a notification issued by the Government on 12th February 1958, purporting to exercise its powers under S. 78-A of Act 54 of 1948. In this notification a direction was included that the Board was to frame its own new grades and service conditions under its regulations, and the employees, whose services were transferred to the Board, were to exercise option either to accept these new grades and service conditions, or to continue in their existing grades and service conditions, except in regard to conduct and disciplinary rules, or to obtain relief from Government service by claiming pension or gratuity as might be admissible on abolition of posts under the Rajasthan Service Rules. The Board, however, did not frame any new grades and service conditions at least up to the time that the present litigation arose. Respondent No. 1 was, however, deputed by the State Government by its order, dated 27th January 1960, after having worked under the Board for a period of about two years to the Public Works Department of the Government. On 10th August 1960, an order was made by the Government addressed to the Secretary of the Board indicating that respondent No. 1 as well as respondents 4 to 14 were to be treated as on deputation to the Board. On 24th November 1962, the Public Works Department passed an order reverting respondent No. 1 to his parent department with effect from 1st December 1962, but the period of deputation was later extended till 25th July 1963. On 11th July 1963, he was actually reverted to the Board from the Public Works Department, and the Board issued orders posting respondent No. 1 as a Foreman. In the interval, while respondent No. 1 was working in the Public Works Department, respondents 4 to 14 had been promoted by the Board as Assistant Engineers. while respondent No. 1 was promoted to work as Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department. On his reversion, respondent No. 1 claimed that he was also entitled to be promoted as Assistant Engineer under the Board, because some of the other respondents promoted were junior to him, and, in the alternative, that, in any case, he was entitled to be considered for promotion. This request made by him to the Board as well as to the State Government was turned down and, thereupon, respondent No. 1 filed a petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution in the High Court of Rajasthan. Respondent No. 1 claimed that he was entitled to equality of treatment with respondents 4 to 14, and inasmuch as he had not been considered for promotion with them by the Board, the Board had acted in violation of Arts. 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The Board contested the petition on two grounds. The first ground was that respondent No. 1 had never become a permanent servant of the Board and never held any substantive post under it, so that he could not claim to be considered for promotion with respondents 4 to 14. The second ground was that the Board could not he held to be "State" as defined in Art. 12 of the Constitution and, consequently, no direction could be issued to the Board by the High Court under Art. 226 or Art. 227 of the Constitution on the basis that the actions of the Board had violated Arts. 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The High Court rejected both these grounds, accepted the plea of respondent No. 1, quashed the order of promotion of respondents 4 to 14 and issued a direction to the Board to consider promotions afresh after taking into account the claims of respondent No. 1. The Board has now come up in appeal to this Court, by special leave, against this order of the High Court Apart from the Board, the State of Rajasthan, and the Chief Engineer and Technical Member of the Rajasthan State Electricity Board, Jaipur, were also impleaded as opposite parties in the writ petition; and they are respondents 2 and 3 in this appeal.

(2.) On the first question, Mr. S. T. Desai on behalf of the appellant drew our attention to the notification, dated 12th February 1958, in which it was specifically laid down that the services of respondent No. 1 and respondents 4 to 14 were being placed at the disposal of the Board 'provisionally'. He has taken us through the various pleadings in the petition filed by respondent No. 1 to show that the case put forward by respondent No. 1 before the High Court was that he never became a permanent servant of the Board and was claiming that, after the winding up of the Electrical and Mechanical Department of the Government, he was temporarily with the Board and, later, became a permanent servant of the State in the Public Works Department. The High Court, on the other hand, held that the pleadings of respondent No. 1 were obscure and that the correct position was that respondent No. 1 had become an employee of the Board, so that he was entitled to claim promotion in the service of the Board. There is no doubt that in Paras. 5, 7, 9 and 14 of the petition respondent No. I had put forward the case that he was originally a servant of the State of Rajasthan and continued to be such throughout and retained his lien on that Government service. In Para 27 an alternative pleading was also put forward on his behalf that, if it be held that, on the abolition of the Electrical and Mechanical Department of the State, he had no lien with the Government and his services were permanently transferred to the Board, he was placed in identical circumstances as the other respondents 4 to 14 and continued to be governed by the service conditions which were applicable to him when he was in the service of the State Government, so that he was entitled to be considered for promotion with respondents 4 to 14. It is also correct that, initially, when the services of the various respondents were placed at the disposal of the Board, the Government purported to do so provisionally, and at no later stage did the Government pass any order transferring their services to the Board permanently. It, however, appears that both the Government and the Board, in dealing with respondent No. 1 as well as the other respondents, treated them as if they had become employees of the Board. The services of respondent No. 1 were placed at the disposal of the Public Works Department where he remained for a period of a little over three years, but he was all the time treated there as on deputation. At that time, in the order posting him to the Public Works Department, it was laid down that he would retain his lien in the Power Department. According to Mr. Desai, the Power Department mentioned in this order was meant to refer to the Electrical and Mechanical Department of the Government which used to be popularly known by that name. We, however, found in the judgment of the High Court that the High Court attempted to gather the meaning of the expression "Power Department" by questioning the counsel for the Board and the Officer-in-charge of the Board who appeared before the High Court and was able to discover that there is no Power Department existing as such and that this was just another name for the State Electricity Board. On this view of the High Court, the order of the Government. dated 27th January 160, would indicate that the lien of respondent No. 1 was on a post under the Board. Further, when respondent No. I was relieved from the post of Assistant Engineer in the Public Works Department, the order which the Government passed specifically mentioned that he was taken on deputation from the Board, and directed his reversion to his parent department. In the order of reversion respondent No. 1 was thus treated as an employee of the Board which was described as his parent department and from which he had been taken on deputation in the Public Works Department. Even the Board itself, in its order, dated 11th July 1963, proceeded on the, basis that respondent No. 1 had reverted from the Public Works Department and made a direction that, on reversion from that Department, he was posted as Foreman I. Chambel Grid sub-Station, Udaipur, against a newly sanctioned post. Thus, the Board accepted the position that respondent No. 1 was a servant of the Board and not an employee of the State Government in the Public Works Department. The word "reversion" used in the order clearly implied that, ever, according to the Board, Respondent No. 1 was being sent back to his parent Department from a Department where he had been sent on deputation or temporarily. A further consideration is that respondents Nos. 4 to 14 were treated by the Board as its permanent employees and were actually granted promotion to the posts of Assistant Engineers from the posts of Foremen on that basis. In the cases of these respondents also, there is nothing to show that, after their services were provisionally placed at the disposal of the Board by the notification, dated 12th February 1958, any order was passed permanently transferring them to the Board and, yet, they were treated as permanent employees of the Board. Respondent No. l was identically placed, and, in these circumstances, we are unable to hold that the High Court committed any error in holding that respondent No. 1 was in the service of the Board just as were respondents 4 to 14. The notification, dated 12th February 1958, had specifically laid down that the Board was to frame its new grades and service conditions and one of the alternatives to be given to each employee, whose services were placed at the disposal of the Board, was either to be governed by these new grades and service conditions, or to continue to be governed by the grades and service conditions already applicable to them when they were in the Electrical and Mechanical Department. Since the Board did not frame any new grades or new service conditions, it is clear that respondent No. 1 as well as respondents 4 to 14 continued to be governed by the old grades and service conditions applicable to them when they were servants of the State Government in the Electrical and Mechanical Department where they were all serving as Foremen. All of them being governed by identical rules, it is clear that respondent No. 1 was entitled to be considered for promotion under the Board on the basis of equality with respondents, Nos. 4 to 14.

(3.) On the second point that the Board cannot be held to be "State" within its meaning in Art. 12 of the Constitution, Mr. Desai urged that, on the face of it, the Board could not be held to be covered by the authorities named therein, viz., the Government and Parliament of India and the Government and the Legislature of each of the State and local authorities, and the expression "other authorities", if read ejusdem generis with those named, cannot cover the Board which is a body corporate having a separate existence and has been constituted primarily for the purpose of carrying on commercial activities. In support of his proposition that the expression other authorities" should be interpreted ejusdem generic, he relied on a decision of the Madras High Court in University of Madras v. Shantha Bai, AIR 1954 Mad 67. The High Court, considering the question whether a University can be held to. be local or other authority as defined in Art. 12, held