RAMAKRISHNA PILLAI Vs. GOPINATHAN NAIR AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The appeal raises a question of seniority as between the Appellant and the 1st Respondent. The 1st Respondent was the writ Petitioner before the learned Judge. His writ Petition was allowed and quashing Ext. P-11 order of the Government, he was declared to be senior to the Appellant.

(2.) The Appellant and the 4th Respondent both entered as Lower Division Clerks in the service of the Travancore University on 26th April 1954. After the Kerala University Act of 1957 they were both transferred to the Department of Collegiate Education in the service of the Government of Kerala. Ext. P-1, dated 2nd June 1959 is a communication from the Registrar of the University to the Director of Collegiate Education, Trivandrum, regarding fixation of seniority and rank of clerks in the University. It stated that the files on the subject were not forthcoming, and regarding the fixation of rank of Clerks, the position was to be taken as follows:

(3.) We are not in the region of statutory rules or regulations governing the question of seniority as between the parties, but essentially in the region of certain ad hoc instructions or directions such as what was formulated in Ext. P-1. Counsel for the 1st Respondent stressed that in the list drawn up at the time of selection and arranged according to priority, his client had a higher rank than the Appellant and that this should govern his seniority. There are certain hurdles to surmount before accepting this position. Ext. P-11 found, on the basis of the statements of the University that such a panel of names had not been drawn up or prepared. Even if it had been, where two persons from the panel have been appointed on the same date, and we are left with the rule (Or instruction) that in such cases seniority in age should determine seniority in service, we see no warrant to split seconds over the appointment or search for ranking in the panel drawn up for selection. The principle stated in Ext. P-1 is quite different, and that was accepted by Ext. P-11.