PADMANABHA B M Vs. STATE OF MYSORE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners, who are allottees to the State of Mysore under Sub-section (3) of S. 115 of the States Reorganization Act. 1956, from the Department of Excise and Prohibition under the Board of Revenue from Madras State, have filed this writ petitione under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India, challenging the action of respondent 3, the Commissioner of Excise, who has included the names of the petitioner in the provisional inter-State seniority list of Excise Assistant Inspectors as on 1 November 1956, on the ground that respondent 3, when he prepared and published the inter-State seniority list, was not the head of the department. Though in their petition the petitioners had claimed a large number of distinct and separate reliefs, they restricted their prayer in their affidavit filed on 9 April 1964 to the following two reliefs :

(2.) In order to appreciate the contentions urged by the learned counsel for the petitioners in support of the petition, it is necessary to set out briefly the undisputed facts appearing on the pleadings of the parties. Petitioners 1 to 3 were sub- inspectors in the Department of Excise and Prohibition under the Madras Board of Revenue, and petitioner 4 was a lower division clerk in the same department, on 31 October 1956, and all of them were allotted to the State of Mysore by the Central Government in exercise of the powers conferred by Sub-section (3) of S. 115 of the States Reorganization Act, 1956. The petitioners, on the date of the formation of the new State of Mysore, ware serving in the district of South Kanara. Which was transferred from the State of Madras to the new State of Mysore. Petitioners 1 to 3 are holding the same posts and petitioner 4 was promoted as sub-inspector on 15 May 1957. In the erstwhile Madras State after the introduction of prohibition, the posts of sub-inspectors, petty officers and peons in the Excise Department were abolished and in their place, the posts of sub-inspectors of prohibition, petty officers, and prohibition guards with the time-scales of pay identical to those in the Police Department were created with effect from 1 Ootober 1946 by G.O. No. 1862, Revenue, dated 27 August 1950. The petitioners who ware prohibition officers appointed under S. 25(d) of the Madras Prohibition Act, 1937, were performing the duties prescribed by that Act and rules framed thereunder. The head of the department was the Commissioner of Prohibition appointed under S. 25(a) of the Madras Prohibition Act. By G.O. No. 3524. Home, dated 1 December 1954, of the Madras Government, the work of enforcement of prohibition was entirely transferred to the Police Department with effect from 3 January 1955, and the Board of Revenue, Madras, was put in charge of all residuary work connected with prohibition. The residuary work comprised of administration of the Madras Prohibition Act, the Opium Act and the Dangerous Drugs Act, realization of revenue under the said Acts, and the issue and supervision of the several kinds of licence under those Acts. The personnel then in the Department of Excise and Prohibition were divided between the Inspector-General of Police and the Board of Revenue (Excise). Pursuant to the division, some of the personnel went to the Police Department and the rest were retained in the Department of Excise and Prohibition under the control of the Madras Board of Revenue (Excise). It may be also mentioned that the Police Department and the Department of Excise and Prohibition had common pay-scales. The sub-inspectors in the Department of Excise and Prohibition had the same pay-scale as the sub-inspector of Police in the Police Department and the prohibition guards had the same pay- scales as the Police constables. In a number of instances, there was interchange of personnel : sometimes officials from the Department of Excise and Prohibition ware transferred to the Police Department and vice versa. Petitioner 2 had worked as sub- inspector of police, while he was in the Madras State for a period of about eight months. One Sri P. J. Bagilthaya, Inspector, in the Department of Excise and Prohibition, on 31 October, 1956 was a Police Inspector before, and after the formation of the new State, he was promoted and posted as Deputy Superintendent of Police by the Mysore State. Similarly, Sri Shafee Sehammed and Sri B. Kamalkar Shet who were sub-inspectors in the Department of Excise and Prohibition under the Madras Board of Revenue and who were similarly situated as the petitioners 1 to 3, were transferred to the Police Department after the formation of the new State of Mysore, and for the purpose of seniority and pay, their previous service in the Department of Excise and Prohibition was taken into account.

(3.) Subsequent to 1 November 1956, in the new State of Mysore, the pay-scales in the Department of Police were revised in the years 1957 and 1961 with substantial benefits' to the employees of the department. But no such revision was effected in the Department of Excise and Prohibition. The petitioners' grievance is that while they ware in the service of Madras State, there was common pay-scale for the Department of Police and the Department of Excise and Prohibition and in the new State of Mysore, they have not been given the benefit of the revision of pay-scales given to the officials of the Department of Police. This, according to the petitioners, is violative of the guarantee of equality enshrined in Arts. 14 and 16 of the Constitution.