BALAM SINGH NEGI Vs. STATE OF UTTARAKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Vipin Sanghi), CJ. 1. The present special appeal is directed against the order dtd. 14/12/2022, passed by the learned Single Judge, in Writ Petition (S/S) No. 2351 of 2022. The said writ petition preferred by the appellant has been dismissed by the learned Single Judge on merits, as well as on account of delay and laches in preferring the said writ petition.

(2.) The facts, in brief, are that the appellant claimed that he was serving as a Class-IV employee in a Government Aided Institution since 1997. Admittedly, the said school was provincialized in the year 2012. Subsequently, vide order dtd. 19/12/2013, the Chief Education Officer, Almora absorbed the appellant in Government service w.e.f. 1/9/2012. After over ten years of his being absorbed in government service, w.e.f. 1/9/2012, the appellant preferred the aforesaid writ petition challenging the order dtd. 19/12/2013, issued by respondent No.3, which stated that he was being appointed as a temporary government employee in the Institution after provincialization of the same. The appellant also sought a direction to the respondents to treat his initial date of appointment in the year 1997 in the erstwhile Government Aided Management School, as the date of his substantive appointment for the purposes of computing his benefits under the ACP Scheme/ pay fixation and promotion.

(3.) The learned Single Judge has not found merit in this claim of the appellant-writ petitioner, while observing that since the Institution was provincialized w.e.f. 1. 09.2012, therefore, the appellant's prayer for his absorption as a Government employee anterior to the date when the Institution was provincialized, is without any legal basis. The learned Single Judge has also observed that the writ petition was preferred highly belatedly.