MANGAT RAM Vs. VICE CHAIRMAN D D A

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners, who have joined as Beldars i.e. class-IV employees in various departments of the respondents have filed this writ petition for directions to the respondents to promote these petitioners with retrospective effect as Lower Division Clerks/class-in employees from the date from which they have been made to perform the duties and functions of the post of Lower Division Clerks. They have also sought mandamus against the respondents for granting the petitioners the pay of Lower Division Clerks retrospectively on the well-known principle of equal pay for equal work.

(2.) The petitioners had joined as beldars in the year 1975 but they plead that they have been performing the duties and functions of Lower Division Clerk under the directions of their superior officers for all these years and they have been making representations to the authorities for being given promotion as Lower Division Clerks and also for payment of salaries as Lower Division Clerks and instead of granting them the said reliefs which are due to the petitioners, the respondents have issued an Office Order dated April 5, 1991 requiring that all those officials who have not been recruited to the post of Lower Division Clerks and have been diverted to those posts unauthorisedly should be asked to revert back to their posts for -which they were duly appointed.

(3.) This writ petition was filed in May 1991 and an interim order had been obtained for observing the status-quo till further orders. The respondents have contested the petition and have pleaded that fhe petitioners have never been recruited as Lower Division Clerks by any competent authority and thus they cannot be given promotion to the posts of Lower Division Clerks and they cannot be also paid fhe salaries of Lower Division Clerks. They have pleaded that in fact the appointment to the post of Lower Division Clerk can be made only in accordance with the recruitment rules and fhe competent authority to make such appointment is either the Vice Chairman of D.D.A. or the Finance Member and no other officer of D.D.A. is competent to appoint any person to the post of Lower Division Clerk and as the petitioners were never appointed as Lower Division Clerks by any competent person, thus, they cannot claim any right of being appointed to fhe post of Lower Division Clerk It is also averred in the counter affidavit that there have been no directions given by any competent authority requiring the petitioners to perform the duties and functions of Lower Division Clerks.