D K JAIN Vs. DELHI JAL BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) At the fulcrum of the present dispute is a seniority wrangle between graduate and diploma-holder engineers in the Delhi Jal Board. The Petitioners maintain that they are senior to those graduate officers who, in terms of the Order dated 19.9.1988, have been allowed to hold the post of Assistant Engineer (Civil) on current duty charge basis with immediate effect. Their appointment on current duty charge basis as Assistant Engineers (Civil) is stated not confer any title or claim to the post being purely a stop-gap arrangement. These petitions also bring to the surface two important and intriguing facets of service law which have become extremely critical and the fountainhead of bludgeoning litigation.

(2.) Firstly failure to constitute a Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and complete the promotion process is no longer the exception and has become the rule. The effect of not dealing with promotions, the incidence and occurrence of which are known years in advance, inexorably leads to litigation. Such disputes undermine proper administrative functioning as it causes heartburn and rivalry between members in the cadre/post leading to the dissipation of energies of the incumbents concerned in the Court-room instead of in the Office.

(3.) Secondly, it brings into limelight the logic or the absence of it behind imposing a life-long disadvantage on officers predicated on their educational qualifications whilst excluding or disregarding altogether their experience in the job. There can be no gainsaying that a freshly licensed doctor or lawyer is no match to someone who has already spent a decade in the profession. The purpose of education is to impart knowledge, which is invariably a derivation of mankind's experience, to the students in an organised and regulated manner. It is of relevance, therefore, at the initial stage of embarking on a career. Thereafter, the person gains knowledge through hands-on experience. A graduate would ordinarily have a greater store of knowledge than a diploma holder because of the prescribed curriculum. Therefore, there is a rationale in granting an initial advantage to the graduate vis-a-vis the diploma holder. However once they have functioned and served with equal diligence and competence in the same post there appears to me to be no justification for maintaining a disparity between them in respect of future advancement in their respective careers. Indubitably, a compounder or apothecary cannot be substituted for a doctor or a surgeon. But that is not merely because a qualitative difference in educational qualifications but also because they have different work-functions. So long as graduates and diploma holders perform the sa me functions and duties a perpetual partiality for the former, in my present opinion, would be an illegal discrimination. Einstein's genius thrived while he was employed as a Clerk in a Patent Office and his comparative modesty in formal education proved not to be any impediment for advancing esoteric and complex theories in Physics and Mathematics.