STATE OF PUNJAB Vs. HEAD CONSTABLE ROSHANLAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The instruction issued by the Punjab Government dated 30th March, 1979 providing for reservation in the promotion course for Scheduled Castes and Backward classes candidates was challenged in a writ petition by the respondents in the Punjab and Haryana High Court which by its judgment and order dated 1st February, 1991 allowed the writ petition and held that the instructions were bad by observing as under: "after going through the judgment I am of the view that this matter is squarely covered by the ratio of the aforesaid judgments. Consequently, this petition is allowed. Since respondents 4 to 20 have already been deputed for the course. I do not consider it fit to quash their deputation to the intermediate course. However, a direction is issued to respondent I to 3 to depute the petitioners to the Intermediate School course commencing in April, 1991".

(2.) Letters Patent Appeal filed against that judgment by the present appellants was dismissed by the Division Bench summarily on 29th April, 1991 and it is against that judgment that the present appeal has been filed in this Court in which an interim order was passed on 30th September, 1991, staying the operation of the impugned judgment.

(3.) During the pendency of the appeal in this Court, a Full Bench of Punjab and haryana High Court had occasion to consider these instructions and the Full Bench by its judgment dated 19thjuly, 1991 upheld the above instructions by observing as under: "we are of the view (as also noticed by the motion Bench) that unless the reservation is made at this stage, the adequate number of reserved category candidates would not be reflected in List 'c' which concededly does not constitute a link in the process of promotion. We are therefore, of the opinion that sardul Singh's case (supra) is distinguishable on facts and does not help the case of the petitioners. The Division Bench in Ram kumar's case (supra) and the learned single judge in CWP No. 5099/85 (Constable ravinder Singh and Others v. State of Punjab and others) have not gone into the aspect of the matter as we have seen it, and have substantially relied on the observations made in Sardul Singh's case. As already stated above, we are of the opinion that Sardul singh's case is distinguishable, but the two other judgments mentioned above, i. e. Ram kumar's case (supra) and Constable ravinder Singh's case (supra) are wrongly decided and need be overruled. The final argument raised by the counsel for the petitioners is that the rules do not provide for any reservation for Scheduled caste/backward Class candidates and, as such, no reservation can be made in this behalf. This argument also is misplaced. The government instructions relating to reservation of posts for Scheduled Caste/backward classes or other reserved categories are binding on the police department and have to be seen as supplemental to the departmental rules. The reservation made by annexure r-1 is, therefore, valid. Having held as above, we hold that the preparation of the list B-1 in terms of Rule 13.7 constitutes a step in the process of promotion of Constables to Head constables, with the result that reservation for the reserved categories has to be made at the stage of the marking of that list. For the reasons recorded above, we overrule the Judgments rendered by the Division bench in Ram Kumar's case (supra) and by the Single Bench in Constable Ravinder singh 's case (supra) and find no merit in the present writ petition, which is dismissed. However, there will be no order as to costs. "