C. V. SUNILKUMAR Vs. ANOOP P THAMPI

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner was the respondent before the Tribunal and is aggrieved with the direction in the impugned order that the seniority of the applicants, be preserved insofar as no challenge having been made to it and they having settled with composure in their posistion for long years. Applicants before the Tribunal are respondents 1 to 3 here. We refer to the parties from their status before the Tribunal.

(2.) The applicants were persons who were appointed on compassionate grounds. Government orders approving their appointments were issued respectively on 4.5.1990, 25.2.1991 and 5.10.1989. They were however actually appointed only by orders dated 9.5.1994, 7.11.1992 and 28.10.1991. They were said to have been granted seniority on the strength of the orders of eligibility issued by the Government long before their actual appointments. Annexures A3 and A4 were the seniority lists published in which the applicants figured on the basis of their date of eligibility. Annexure A3 was issued on 24.12.2002 and Annexure A4 on 3.8.2009. Later, in the year 2013, Annexure A6 dated 6.6.2013 was passed by the Office of the Directorate of Public Instructions (DPI) revising the seniority and assigning the applicants' seniority only from the date of their joining Government service. Annexure A6 was challenged by the applicants before the Tribunal. The Tribunal found that there was considerable time elapsed after their seniority was fixed in the year 2009. It was also found that Annexure A14 dated 1.8.2018 issued by the 1st respondent itself did not acknowledge the seniority of a person who raised cudgels against the applicants on the very same basis.

(3.) The learned counsel appearing for the 4 th respondent would first take us through Annexure A3 which is stated to be the seniority list of persons appointed between 1.1.2009 and 31.12.1992. The 4th respondent was appointed only on 14.7.1993 and there was no cause of action for the respondent to challenge Annexure A3. Subsequently, when a provisional seniority list was notified for Upper Division Clerks, the 4th respondent filed objection on 10.10.2008 and followed it up with another objection dated 12.6.2009. Discarding his objections, a final seniority list was published as per Annexure A4 dated 3.8.2009. A complaint was preferred against that and it was pursuant to that after hearing all the parties that Annexure A6 was passed is the contention. It is argued that Annexure A14 cannot be held against the 4th respondent, since he was never heard and the same was only in pursuance of the direction in Annexure A13 judgment in an original application filed by yet another person. Answering the contention of the learned counsel for the applicants that the 4 th respondent did not even file a counter affidavit before the Tribunal, it is pointed out that the old residential address of the 4th respondent was given in the original application. Notice was issued and not returned after service. Hence the applicants had moved for deemed service which was allowed by the Tribunal. This was the reason for not having filed counter affidavit.