STATE OF CHHATTISGARH Vs. RAMESH KUMAR SAHU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) We have heard the learned Additional Advocate General and the learned counsel for the contesting respondents who are the writ petitioners, quite in extensio on the different aspects of these writ appeals.

(2.) Fundamentally, the issues revolve on the question whether the writ petitioners are entitled to count their service rendered following their initial appointments as emergency appointees, stated to have been made in conformity with the governing rules. Keeping aside the question as to whether they were appointed in terms of any particular rule or not, the fact of the matter remains that the undisputed situation is that each one of the writ petitioners had contributed labour to the government service and they cannot be treated as back-door recruits. That being so, they are entitled to be paid at par with all persons who contribute labour of the same quality and content. When their total length of service following such emergency appointments accrue in their favour with a benefit of escalation in pay scales, that has also to be given since that could also be treated as part of the legitimate expectations of a person who enters government service.

(3.) The aforesaid position notwithstanding, we notice immediately that the same issue had arisen in relation to the persons who are now working in the State of Madhya Pradesh. As a matter of fact, the writ petitioners and those who are now in the State of Madhya Pradesh were recruited in the same time when the Chhattisgarh State was not carved out. After the formation of the State of Chhattisgarh in the 2000, those government servants who were available in the Chhattisgarh area came under the Chhattisgarh Government and those under the Madhya Pradesh area, continued with the Madhya Pradesh Government. Issues between those employees who are similarly situated to the writ petitioners, but are now part of the Madhya Pradesh service went to the High Court in the form of a writ petition as Writ Petition No. 807 of 2007 (Dr. Sandhya Prasad v. State of Madhya Pradesh) decided on 13.07.2007. That was decided against the State of Madhya Pradesh. The State Government carried in writ appeal but found it waterloo. State of Madhya Pradesh went to the Supreme Court challenging that verdict. Their Lordships dismissed the appeal by the State of Madhya Pradesh through the judgment in State of Madhya Pradesh v. Satyavrata Taran, reported as (2012) 2 SCC 83. The facts of the case in hand are wholly similar to the facts situation dealt with by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Satyavrata Taran's case. The issues raised in these writ appeals are therefore covered squarely against the interest of the appealing State of Chhattisgarh by the ratio decidendi of the judgment in Satyavrata Taran (supra).