JOSHI JASHWANT HARIPRASAD Vs. MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER AHMEDABAD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) These four petitions respectively by 9 13 8 and 3 petitioners are directed against the selection of clerks to be recruited for the purpose of running the administration of the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service hereinafter referred to as AMTS for brevitys sake. These different petitioners are similarly situated in so far as they were about the month of February 1980 were appointed as Clerks admittedly on temporary basis but they were sought to be reverted to make room for the selectees on the section panel made by the Transport Manager. The petitioners therefore filed at different times these petitions essentially for the purpose of getting it declared at 23-58-10 that hat the selection list of the Junior Clerks to be employed in the AMTS for appointments of Clerks was bad at law and the respondent No. 2 the Transport Manager should be restrained from relieving the petitioners in order to translate that list into reality.

(2.) A few facts require to be stated in order to comprehend the controversy. The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is a body floated under the provisions of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 hereinafter referred to as the Act. This Corporation has taken upon itself a transport undertaking for last many years. In order to run this whole show of transport administration the Junior Clerks are required to be recruited time and again. It is an admitted fact that public advertisement was issued in the month of January 1979 inviting applications for the post of Junior Clerks. All these petitioners and many others numbering about more than 13 0 had made such applications. The written test was held on 18-11-79. The candidates who passed the written test I assume were to be further tested at the viva voce and it is the say of the Transport Manager in his affidavit that this whole gamut came to its culmination on 23-5-80. In all there were selected 300 candidates out of whom 200 were approved for immediate appointment and the remaining 100 were kept on the waiting list to be invited as and when the vacancies of the Junior Clerks posts arose. It however so happened that in February 1980 the posts of clerks were required to be filled in. The petitioners of these petitions who were the applicants pursuant to the above mentioned advertisement of January 1979 and who were under the process of being screened were selected for holding those posts of clerks temporarily. The orders were passed appointing them temporarily with express condition that their appointments are liable to be cancelled at any time without any prior notice or without assignment of any reasons. Not only did the orders specify so but even a writing was taken from each of these candidates appointed temporarily to the effect that their appointments were only for one month and that this period (of ore month) could be extended by the Manager if the need so arose. In the month of May 1980 200 selectees were to be appointed and the petitioners therefore were required to make room for them as the persons holding the posts temporarily and on ad hoc basis. The petitioners therefore knocked the doors of this court by filing those petitions which were heard together with the concurrence of the learned advocates appearing for the parties with a special statement that the various affidavits and rejoinders and sur rejoinders whatever they are filed in one or the other of the petitions should be read for the purpose of deciding those group of petitions.

(3.) The petitioners in their petitions did not say that there was any fresh attempt by the Transport Manager to issue fresh advertisements subsequent to the one referred to above or there was any fresh further attempt to hold the written test and the oral test. The Corporations affidavit also did not make this position clear though the tenor of their affidavit was suggestive of the fact that the procedure of selection that had been initiated with the issuance of a public advertisement dated 24 came to reach its culmination only in May 1980 because of a very large number of candidates being required to be tested for the purpose of selection. It is also no longer in controversy before me that the petitioners who had appeared in that examination and viva voce had unfortunately were declared not upto the standard and they were ]therefore declared failures. The petitioners therefore filed these petitions in the month of May 1980. The interim relief restraining the Transport Manager from relieving the petitioners was initially granted but had come to be vacated by our Brother Ahmadi J. by his order dated 31-7-80 on the statement having been made by Mr. G. N. Desai for the Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service that if these petitioners succeeded in these petitions they would be restored their position and were to be continued in service without break and without effecting their seniority.