ASHOK KUMAR GUPTA Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners who are Assistant Engineers in the Public Works Department have filed this writ petition to challenge selection proceedings of the Departmental Promotion Committee dated January 27/30, 1993 for the post of Executive Engineer. Rule 8 of the U.P. Service of Engineers (Public Works Department) (Higher) Rules, 1990 provides that recruitment to the cost of Executive Engineer shall be made on the basis of seniority subject to rejection of unfit through a Selection Committee constituted under the said rule. The appointing authority shall prepare an eligibility list of the candidates in accordance with the U.P. Promotion by Selection (for posts outside the purview of the Public Service Commission) Eligibility List Rules, 1986 and place the same before the Selection Committee along with their character rolls and such other records pertaining to them as may be considered proper. The Selection Committee shall consider the cases of the candidates on the basis of the records referred to above and shall prepare a list of selected candidates arranged in order of seniority as it stood in the cadre from which they are to be promoted and forward the same to the appointing authority. Rule 6 lays down that reservation for the candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other category shall be made in accordance with the orders of the Government in force at the time of recruitment. Rule 18 of the said rules provides that nothing in these Rules shall affect reservations and other concessions required to be provided for the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other special categories of persons in accordance with the orders of the Government issued from time to time in this regard. The relevant Government orders regarding reservation have been filed as An-nexures 2, 3, 4 and 5 to the writ petition.

(2.) The U.P. Promotion by Selection (for posts outside the purview of the Public Service Commission) Eligibility List Rules, 1986 has been given overriding effect. Rule 5 of the said Rules provides that where the criterion for promotion is seniority subject to rejection of unfit the appointing authority shall prepare three lists to be called the eligibility lists of the senior-most eligible candidates from each of the category, namely, General, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes separately in the light of vacancies available for each of the said category containing names so far as may be, in the following proportion, that is to say, for 1 to 5 vacancies 2 times the number of vacancies subject to a minimum of 5 and for over 5 vacancies 1^ times the number of vacancies subject to a minimum of 10. Rule 5 further provides that the provisions contained in proviso to Rule 4 shall mutatis mutandis apply in preparing an eligibility list under this Rule For the sake of ready reference it may be stated that the proviso to Rule 4 says that if recruitment is to be made for vacancies occurring during more than one year of recruitment, separate eligibility lists will be prepared in respect of each such year and in such a case while preparing the eligibility list for second and subsequent years of recruitment, the number of candidates to be included in the eligibility list shall be for the second year the number according to the said proportion plus the number of vacancies in the first year; and for the third year the number according to the said proportion plus the number of vacancies in the first and second years and so on : and further that candidates who arc not considered suitable prima facie for promotion shall not be taken into account in calculating the said proportion and a note to the effect that they are not so considered shall be added against their names.

(3.) The learned counsel for the petitioner stated that he will not raise any question of fact and that he will address arguments on question of law only and hence the writ petition may be finally disposed of. The learned Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of respondents Nos. 1 and 2 and the learned counsel for respondents Nos. 3 and 4 stated that they will not file any counter affidavit and agreed that the writ petition may be finally disposed of. Respondents Nos.3 and 4 were impleaded on their application. In view of the above statements, the writ petition has been heard on merits and is being finally disposed of at the admission stage itself.