C.S. HARI RAO AND N. BALASUBRAMANIAN Vs. THE GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU REPRESENTED BY SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT EDUCATION DEPARTMENT AND ORS.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) IN these two writ petitions the petitioners have prayed for a writ of certiorari to quash G.O. Ms. No. 716, Education, dated 6th May, 1974. These petitioners were originally appointed as lower division clerks in the then office of the Director of Public Instruction, Madras. They were later promoted as Upper Division Clerk (now designated as Assistants), The next promotion for these petitioners was to the post of Superintendent. In the meanwhile the office of the Director of Public Instruction was bifurcated in 1965 as Directorate of School Education and Directorate of Collegiate Education.

(2.) IN the Education Department, the office of the then Director of Public Instruction was treated as one unit for purposes of appointments, transfers and promotions and the subordinate offices situate outside the city of Madras were treated as a separate unit. The result of it was the appointments, promotions and transfers arising in one unit were made from among the personnel : of that unit and there was no combined seniority in relation to the city office and the subordinate offices. When the office of the Director of Public Instruction was bifurcated into Directorate of School Education and Directorate of Collegiate Education in 1965, the personnel in the city and the subordinate offices were made mutually transferable from one Directorate to the other, but, later on in the year 1972, they were given election to opt either to the Directorate of School Education or to the Directorate of Collegiate Education. It is claimed by the Government in their counter -affidavit that those who did not opt were made permanent in the offices in which they were working at that time. Though this point was disputed by the learned Counsel for the petitioners, that does not arise for consideration and need not detain us further.

(3.) TO have one unit for the entire Ministerial Staff of the School and Collegiate Education Departments in the State, or to have more than one unit, is certainly a policy decision which the Government alone is competent to take and the Courts are not entitled to interfere with such policy decision. But what is contended by the learned Counsel for the petitioners is that there is a statutory rule which divides the entire Ministerial staff in the State into two units, one for Directorates in the city and the other for the subordinate offices situate outside the city of Madras for purposes of appointments, transfers and promotions and that so long as the Rule has not been amended, the Government could not by an administrative direction achieve to have one unit for the entire State.