MANAGER P AND T Vs. MOTOR SERVICE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Manager, Posts & Telegraphs, Motor Service, is the appellant in this appeal, against the judgment of a learned Judge of this Court, allowing O. P. No. 1607 of 1975 preferred by the 1st respondent. The 1st respondent was a driver in the Posts & Telegraphs Department and sought to quash the order awarding him the punishment of censure and recovery of Rs. 250/- as damages representing the loss incurred by the Department on account of the respondent's misconduct in driving the vehicle. It was the respondent's case that he was denied promotion to the higher post after taking into consideration his service record which contained this punishment of censure and recovery of Rs. 250/-. After so taking these into account the 1st respondent contended that he was declared unfit for promotion. Promotion, it is common ground, had to be decided on considerations of seniority cum fitness.

(2.) The meaning and content of the expression 'seniority cum fitness' has been judicially expounded by this Court on more than one occasion. In V. Rev. Mother Provincial v. State of Kerala (1969 KLT 749) a Full Bench of this Court speaking through Raman Nayar C. J., observed:

(3.) From the principle of the above decisions, it is clear that an element of assessment of suitability is certainly involved in deciding the question of promotion on the basis of seniority cum fitness. Both the elements of seniority and suitability have to enter into the reckoning, and in deciding the suitability of the candidate for promotion his service record is certainly an element to be taken into consideration or account. Without an element of assessment, we do not see how, as stated by the Supreme Court, in the decision noticed, a senior may be passed over by a junior on considerations of suitability or fitness (see AIR 1968 SC 1113, para 4). In that view, the learned Judge was wrong in directing that the censure and the recovery entered against the petitioner in his service record should be ignored and that his promotion should be ordered unhampered by the censure in his service record.