KRISHNANKUTTY NAIR Vs. JOINT REGISTRAR CO OP SOCIETIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appellant - petitioner was appointed an attender in the service of the 2nd respondent. Cooperative Bank on 11-8-1972, at a time when no qualification was prescribed either for the post of attender or for that of Clerk. R.186 of the Kerala Cooperative Societies Rules, prescribing qualifications for various posts in cooperative societies, came into force on January 1, 1974. The appellant petitioner has no case that he possessed the qualifications prescribed by that rule. Subsequently, the appointment of the appellant petitioner in the post of Attender was regularised; and as per the order dated 5-4-1983 the 2nd respondent Bank had promoted and appointed him to the post of Clerk. By Ext. P3 order, however, his reversion from the post of Clerk for want of qualification was ordered. It is this order that was being challenged by the appellant petitioner in the writ petition, which was dismissed by our learned brother Sivaraman Nair, J. by the judgment under appeal.

(2.) The counsel for the appellant petitioner submitted that by virtue of the provisions contained in R.200 of the Cooperative Societies Rules, the appellant, who entered service before 1-1-1974 - on which date alone R.186 came into force - was entitled to be promoted to be a Clerk, irrespective of the fact whether the appellant petitioner possessed of the qualifications prescribed for the post or not.

(3.) We are clear in our minds that it is R.186, not R.200, that would apply to the case of the appellant petitioner. The purpose of R.186, as is clear from the very heading of the rule, is to prescribe the qualifications for the various categories of the post, while the purpose of R.200 is to save certain rights or privilege or emoluments they were entitled to on the date on which the rules came into force. Note (1) to R.186 reads as follows:-