POULOSE Vs. UNION OF INDIA UOI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two writ applications raise common, if not, identical questions. The same questions have also been raised in a number of other writ applications, 56 in number, which were also heard along with them.

(2.) There are two petitioners in O.P. No. 2388 of 1965. They were Superintendents in the Accountant General's Office in the former Travancore-Cochin State. On 1-4-1950, the date of the Federal Financial integration, the persons working in the Accountant General's Office in the former Travancore-Cochin State were taken over to the Central Government. The first petitioner on that date was on deputation to the Electricity department and was functioning as a Divisional Accountant and the 2nd petitioner was on deputation to the P.W.D. and was also working as a Divisional Accountant. There was a Federal Financial Integration agreement and this agreement accepted the recommendation of the taxation Finance Enquiry Committee that persons who have been working in Part B States, doing work similar to that done by similar employees of the Central Government must be taken over to the Central Government on terms and conditions not less advantageous than those that were enjoying at the time of the integration. The petitioners allege that they had at that time passed all the tests required for promotion to the highest post that could be held in the State Service. It is their contention that consequent on the Federal Financial Integration Agreement they should have been taken over to the Central Service as Supervisors. They were however taken over into the Central Service only as Divisional Accountants. This was done admittedly on the basis of a categorisation and selection by a Committee constituted by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The points raised in these Writ Applications are that the Comptroller had no authority for constituting a committee or for directing the adoption of the method of categorisation and selection, that the whole procedure adopted is without jurisdiction and secondly that the Federal Financial Integration Agreement has been infringed when the petitioners were not taken over into the Central Service in the same posts that they were holding then. Finally, it is stressed that many juniors of the petitioners have been taken over as Supervisors which is discriminatory and violative of Art.14 and 16 of the Constitution.

(3.) The selection and categorisation took place pursuant to an order dated 19-6-1951, and it is an admitted fact that the petitioners have been fitted in as Divisional Accountants soon after that order.