DESOOLA RAMA RAO Vs. STATE OF ANDHRA PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS appeal is by special leave and is directed against the appellate judgment of a Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court upholding the rejection of the writ petition by a single Judge of that High Court. Appellants are engineers in the establishment of the Chief Engineer (Road and Building) of the Andhra Pradesh Government and the dispute is one of inter se seniority between them on the one side and respondents 3 and 4 on the other.

(2.) APPELLANTS filed a Writ Petition being No. 4151 of 1972 in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh claiming a direction to the State Government for considering them for promotion to the post of Executive Engineer on the basis that they were senior to five promotee Assistant Engineers. A learned single Judge disposed of the said writ petition by judgment dated 29/03/1973, and gave the following directions.

(3.) THE law relating to inter se seniority in a cadre is well settled. If there be a rule indicating the manner in which such seniority has to be fixed, that is binding. In the absence of such a rule, length of service is the basis for fixing inter se seniority. THE High Court has found, and there is no longer any dispute, that respondents 3 and 4 have put in longer service than the appellants in the post of Assistant Engineer. In that view of the matter, the State Government was right, and the High Court appropriately approved it, that the appellants would rank below respondents 3 and 4 in the cadre and the promotional benefit would be given to them after the claim of respondents 3 and 4 has been duly considered.