K SABANAYAKAM Vs. TAMIL NADU HOUSING BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ALL the petitioners in these writ petitions have brought before this Court a common grievance to be judicially solved and decided. ALL the petitioners are in the service of the first respondent, Housing Board, hereinafter called the Board�. The prayer in all the writ petitions is for the issue of a Writ of Mandamus,dir-ecting the respondents 1 and 2 to promote the petitioners as Assistant Executive Engineers in the service of the first respondent from 23-12-1976 and consequently to give all the petitioners all the benefits, such as seniority., arrears of pay, fixation of scales etc., as if the petitioners had been promoted to the post of the Assistant Executive Engineers on 23-12-1976.

(2.) THE first respondent-Board was established under the Tamil Nadu State Housing Board Act, 1961. THE first respondent, by virtue of the power vested in it under the said Act, had framed the Tamil Nadu State Housing Board Service Regulations, 1969, which was given retrospective effect from 22-4-1961.All the petitioners belong to State Housing Board Engineering Subordinate Service. THEy belong to Supervisor/category of posts having diploma in Engineering. THE next avenue of promotion for the petitioners is as Assistant Engineers which came under the State Housing Board Engineering Officers Service. THE method of recruitment to the State Housing Board Engineering Service is either by direct recruitment or by promotion from other categories of service. To get promotion as Assistant Engineers, the petitioners who are all holding diploma in engineering will have to put in a minimum service of 10 years as Supervisors. Adshs el nis nadsh zoasbnhk nw fshlnil eligible to be promoted as Assistant Engineers just like the petitioners and that category also comes under State Housing Board Subordinate Service. That category of post is designated as Junior Engineers. THE respondents 3 and 4 in all the writ petitions belong to category of Junior Engineers. For Junior Engineers to be promoted as Assistant Engineers, they should have put in a minimum service of five years as Junior Engineers. Thus the grievance of the petitioners is that while all the petitioners had completed 10 years of service as Supervisors between July,1972 to March,1975, the first respondent promoted the respondents 3 and 4 as Assistant Engineers on 23-12-76, without considering the claims of the petitioners and notwithstanding the fact that respondents 3 and 4 had completed the qualifying service of 5 years as Junior Enginers long subsequent to the petitioners.

(3.) CERTAIN earlier proceedings in Court between the employees of the Board and the Board have to be noted to appreciate the rival contentions. It is seen from the records that the first respondent promoted Junior Engineers (Degree holders in Engineering) as Assistant Engineers during the year 1971 and 1972 relaxing the qualifying service in favour of the Junior Engineers. That was challenged by the supervisors (Engineering Diploma Holders) by filing W.P.Nos.1367, 1389 and 1448/73 (S.Swamnathan, V.Balasubra-maniam and S.Surli) Ismail as he then was, by a common order, allowed the writ petitions holding that the Board was not right in relaxing the relevant regulations in favour of the Junior Engineers and also not right in not considering the claims of the petitioners in these writ petitions. The Junior Engineers who were promoted, took the matter by way of writ appeals and the writ appeals came up before the Honourable the Chief Justice and Natarajan, J., and the Division Bench took the view that the regulations having not been published will not have statutory force and therefore any violation or non-compliance of such regulations cannot be relied on to get relief in proceedings under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. That matter is now, it is stated pending in the Supreme Court.