N LAKSHMAIAH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Recruitment to the Central Engineering Service Class I and to the Central Electrical Engineering Service Class I is made under the Central Engineering Service Class I Recruitment Rules (S.R.O. 1841 of 1954) and under the Central Electrical Engineering Service Class I Recruitment Rules (S.R.O. 1943 of 1954) respectively. The later Service and the latter Service Rules are analogous to the former Service and the former Service Rules. To avoid repetition, therefore, reference will be made only to former set of Service and the Service Rules. The most important rules on the construction of which these writ petitions have to decided are the following:

(2.) Provided that all recruitments by competitive examination (vide Part III of the rules) shall be to the grade of Assistant Executive Engineer, Class I only. Sixty-six and two thirds per cent of the vacancies in the grade Executive Engineer Class I, shall be filled by promotion of Assistant Executive Engineers, Class I, the rest of the vacancies being filled by promotion and/or by transfer in accordance with Parts IV and V of the Rules respectively."

(3.) Appointments to the grade of Executive Engineers Class I are made from two sources which constitute two distinct classes to be called Class (1) and Class (2). Class (1) consists of candidates directly recruited to Central Engineering Service Class I by competitive examination under Part III of the Rules and appointed as Assistant Executive Engineers Class I in the Central Engineering Service Class T. They are already in Class 1. They are promoted as Executive Engineers Class I as a matter of course by seniority-cum-fitness by purely executive action outside these Rules. Their "promotion" is not made by way of a method of recruitment in accordance with Part IV of the Rules. The respondent other than the Union of India in these three connected writ petitions (C.W. Nos. 574 of 1970, 553 of 1970 and 716 of 1969) are these candidates who were promoted as Executive Engineers. Class (2) consists of two kinds of candidates. Some of them. namely, the petitioners in Civil Writs 574 of 1970 and 716 of 1969, are candidates who secured lower places in the same competitive examination in which the respondents had secured higher places. These petitioners were recruited to Central Engineering Service Class II as Assistant Engineers Class II. The other petitioners in Civil Writ 553 of 1970 have become Assistant Engineers Class II by promotion from lower grades. The petitioners in all the three writ petitions were "promoted" as Executive Engineers Class I in accordance with Part IV of the Rules by selection on merit. Their "promotion" is thus under the Rules as distinguished from the "promotion" of the respondents which was outside the Rules.