SURENDAR NATH MISHRA Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner Surendra Natn Misra, who appointed as Lecturer in English Department of K. N. Government Degree College, Gyanpur, which is a Government College, on 30th October, 1961, in the pay scale of Rs. 250-500, and imparted education to the students of Graduate and Post Graduate classes and was selected by the Public Service Commission as Lecturer in the said institution in the pay-scale of Rs. 225-450 on 24th August, 1962 and was directed by the Government to continue to impart education in K. N. Government Post Graduate College, Gyanpur in the pay scale of Rs. 250-500, in which capacity he was working since 30th October, 1961, by means of this writ petition, he has challenged the vires of Rule 20 (l) (c) of U. P. Higher Education (Group-A) Services Rules, 1985. He has also prayed for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus commanding the opposite-parties to fix the seniority of Lecturers from the date of their appointment in service by giving credit of continuous length of service and by making promotion on the basis of seniority as such and not with effect from 5tp June, 1972, from which date the Degree College Lecturers were declared Gazetted Officers.

(2.) IT was pointed out on behalf of the petitioner that prior to 4th September, 1973 the Lecturers who were imparting education to Graduate classes and the teachers who were imparting education to Post Graduate were treated as two different cadres, but by means of the Government Order dated 4th September, 1973, both the cadres of teachers were merged into one cadre. IT was provided in the said Government Order, dated 4th September, 1973, that as since 5th June, 1972, all those Lecturers who were imparting education in Government Degree Colleges became Gazetted Officers, hence the Governor of Uttar Pradesh in accordance with the Fundamental Rule 9 (31) (C) of Financial Handbook Vol. 2 to 4 has directed that from that date all the Lecturers imparting education in Government Degree Colleges in the scale of Rs. 250-25-330-E. B.-25-450-E. B.-30-600, will be treated as one cadre. The question as to whether if two persons appointed on, different cadres are amalgamated into one cadre and they continued as such for about a decade or more, can again be discriminated, deserve to be tested on the scale of the provisions of equality, as contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

(3.) IN the case of D. S. Nakara and others v. Union of INdia, AIR 1983 SC 130, Hon'ble Mr. Justice D. A. Desai (as he then was) speaking for the Constitution Bench indicated : "the fundamental principle is that Article 14 forbids class legislation but permits reasonable classification for the purpose of legislation which classification must satisfy the twin tests of classification being founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things that are grouped together from those that are left out of the group and that differentia must have a rational nexus to the object sought to be achieved by the statute in question. It was further indicated : "legislative and executive action may accordingly be sustained if it satisfied the twin tests of reasons able and the rational principle correlated to the object sought to be achieved. The State, therefore, would have to affirmatively satisfy the Court that the twin tests have been satisfied. It can only be satisfied if the State establishes not only the rational principle on which classification is founded but correlates it to the objects sought to be achieved. fixing the specified date for being eligible for the liberalised pension scheme and thereby dividing a homogeneous class, it was held 'the classification being not based on any discernible rational principle and being wholly unrelated to the objects sought to be achieved by grant of liberalised pension and the. . ,. eligibility criteria devised being thoroughly arbitrary, the eligibi lity for liberalised pension scheme of 'being in service on the specified date and retiring subsequent to that date' in the memo randa, violates Article 14 and is unconstitutional and liable to be struck down. "