A SUNDARAGANESAN Vs. PRINCIPAL SECRETARY TRANSPORT COMMISSIONER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This judgement shall dispose of the following writ petitions, viz. , Sl. No. Case No. Name of the Petitioner 1 W. P. No. 7043 of 2008 N. Balagurunathan 2 W. P. No. 4068 of 2009 A. Angamuthu 3 W. P. No. 5912 of 2009 R. Dhamodharan 4 W. P. No. 5913 of 2009 S. Udhayakumar 5 W. P. No. 11211 of 2009 K. Kalyanakumar 6 W. P. No. 11212 of 2009 N. Ravichandran 7 W. P. No. 13680 of 2009 J. Jayanthi 8 W. P. No. 11854 of 2009 P. Shanmugam 9 W. P. No. 26387 of 2009 K. Palanisamy 10 W. P. No. 15297 of 2010 A. Sundaraganesan as common question of law is raised in all these writ petitions. However, for the sake of brevity, the facts are being taken from W. P. No. 15297 of 2010.

(2.) THE petitioner has invoked the jurisdiction of this Court with a prayer for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent to consider him for promotion as Superintendent for the year 2008-2009 without reference to and without taking into account the pendency of the charge memo under rule 17(b) in Government Letter No. 58016/Tr. II/07-3 dated 23. 08. 2007 and the charge pending in T. D. P. No. 15/2007 dated 29. 06. 2007. In some of the cases, the prayer is also for quashing the charge sheet. In view of the fact that all the writ petitioners were consolidated on oral request by the learned counsel for the petitioners, they were allowed to address arguments, to challenge the charge sheet in all the cases.

(3.) THE case of the petitioner is that he has clean record of service and no punishment has been awarded till date. THE Transport Commissioner vide order dated 18. 06. 2007 published a panel of Assistant fit for promotion as Superintendent in which the name of the petitioner was not included due to the pendency of the charge memo against him under Rule 17(b) of Tamil Nadu Civil Service (Discipline and Appeal) Rules.