NATARAJA P Vs. GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE present writ petition in W.P.No.11772/2009 has been filed with a prayer to issue a writ of declaration to declare the rule 2(b) of Tamil nadu Agricultural Engineering Service as illegal, void ab initio and unconstitutional and consequently direct the respondents to consider the petitioners for notional promotion as Assistant Executive Engineer with all consequential service and monetary benefits with retrospective effect from the relevant/respective anterior date on which a Junior Engineer, junior to the petitioners, was appointed as Assistant Executive Engineer and, accordingly, to revise the seniority list in the category of Assistant Executive Engineer.

(2.) THE writ petitioners are Engineering Graduates, working as Assistant Engineers in Agricultural Engineering Department. After their initial appointment as Assistant Engineers temporarily by direct recruitment, they got their services regularized by G.O.Ms.No.444/AD dated 13.06.1990 from the date of their initial appointments and as on today, they have completed more than 20 years of service as Assistant Engineers. After acquiring two decades of experience, while waiting for promotion to the post of Assistant Executive Engineers, the Junior Engineers, who are diploma holders and who have joined as Junior Engineers, subsequent to the petitioners, are given promotion as Assistant Executive Engineers, even earlier to the petitioners, on the basis of ratio of 3:2 between Assistant Engineers and Junior Engineers. For promotion as Assistant Executive Engineers, Rule 2(b) of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Engineering Service prescribes a ratio of 3:2 between Assistant Engineers and Junior Engineers. THErefore, the petitioners, who are Assistant Engineers, are constrained to challenge the validity of Rule 2(b) of Tamil Nadu Agricultural Engineering Service as illegal, void and unconstitutional and the petitioners seek a direction to the respondents to consider the petitioners for notional promotion as Assistant Executive Engineer with all consequential service and monetary benefits with retrospective effect from the relevant/respective anterior date on which a Junior Engineer, Junior to the petitioners were appointed as Assistant Executive Engineers.

(3.) FURTHER, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted that the said impugned rule would demoralize and cause heart burning among the entire Assistant Engineers of the Department thereby ruining the efficiency of Administration guaranteed under Article 335 of Constitution of India, since the said impugned rule holds that the Junior Engineers over takes the higher qualified Assistant Engineers, who are working with a longer service.