M V KAILA Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These two appeals being Letters Patent Appeals Nos.1628 of 1997 and 30 of 1998 arise out of decisions of the learned Single Judge in Special Civil Application No.10426 of 1996 and Special Civil Application No.7035 of 1997 respectively and they are disposed of by way of this common judgment.

(2.) For the purpose of facts, we take the facts of Special Civil Application No.10426 of 2006. The dispute raised in these appeals is in relation to seniority. The appellant belongs to general category candidate and he was working with the State Secretariat. He was promoted to the post of Under Secretary on 16th April 1991 whereas Respondents Nos.4 to 14, who were junior to him as Section Officers, were promoted as Under Secretary, on the post reserved for Scheduled Tribe candidates. Promotion of said juniors were between November 1989 to May 1990. When the question of promotion of these Under Secretaries was to be considered for further promotion on the post of Deputy Secretary, the case of the appellant before us is that he being senior to respondents Nos.4 to 14 in the feeder cadre as Section Officer, he should have been first considered to be appointed as Deputy Secretary. His case was that accelerated promotion on roster point to the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Tribe community was permissible, but once being promoted, the original seniority, in the present case of the cadre of Section Officer, should have been countenanced. He placed reliance on two Supreme Court decisions viz. Ajit Singh Januja v. State of Punjab, AIR 1996 SC 1189 and Joginder Sing Sethi v. Punjab Government, (1982 (2) SLR 307.

(3.) The learned Single Judge did not agree with the claim raised by the appellant and held that the law laid down by the Honourable Supreme Court in the matter of Jagdish Lal and others v. State of Haryana, AIR 1997 SC 2366 will govern the facts of the case and the ratio of the case in the matter of Ajit Singh Januja (supra) would be inapplicable. Learned counsel appearing for the appellants has pressed before us that the Honourable Supreme Court has considered two cases i.e. Ajit Singh (supra) and Jagdish Lal (supra) in a subsequent decision of the Supreme Court reported in the case of Ajit Singh & Ors. v. State of Punjab, AIR 1999 SC 3471 and held as under in paragraph 76: