STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH Vs. AMBARDEKAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THESE two connected special appeals have been filed by the State of Uttar Pradesh against a decision given by Seth, J. , on 3 January 3964, when by a common judgment he allowed two writ petitions and quashed the State Government's order dated 16 February 1958 in so far as it fixed the seniority of the two petitioners, Avadesh Kumar and H. S. Ambardekar, in the Uttar Pradesh Police Service by placing them below the officers promoted or directly recruited to that service in the year 1955.

(2.) ONE of the petitioners, H. S. Ambardekar (the respondent in Special Appeal No. 134 of 1964), was appointed in October 1947 as Adjutant; in the wing of the Uttar Pradesh Police Force then known as the Military Police, the designation of which was changed in December 1947 to Provincial Armed Constabulary; while the other petitioner, Avadesh Kumar (the respondent in Special Appeal No. 135 of 1964), was similarly appointed as Adjutant In the soms force in February 1948. When the Provincial Armed Constabulary, was recognized under the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary Act (10 of 1948), which took effect from December 1948, both the petitioners were made to sign the statement incorporated in the schedule to that Act, and they claim that thereby they were given an assurance that their services in the Provincial Armed Constabulary would count for promotion in the Uttar Pradesh Police. On 4 April 1956 in pursuance of the Government's decision to include the superior gazetted posts in the Provincial Armed Constabulary in the regular Police Force, the petitioners were subatantively appointed as Deputy Superintendents of Police in the cadre of the Uttar Pradesh Police Service with effect from 9 November 1955, " subject to their seniority inter se and vis-a-vis other persons appointed to this service in accordance with the Uttar Pradesh Police Rule being determined at a later date. " They claimed that by virtue of the assurance given to them in 1948 they were entitled to have their services in the Provincial Armed Constabulary from the year 1948 taken into account when their seniority was fixed; but on 15 February 1958 the impugned order was passed, declaring that although they would be deemed to have been appointed to the Uttar Pradesh Police Service from the date they commenced service In the Provincial Aimed Constabulary, that service in the Provincial Armed Constabulary would be treated as having been in an officiating capacity only and their seniority in the gradation list of the Uttar Pradesh Police Service would be fixed in accordance with the date of their substantive appointment in the service, viz. , 9 November 1955. The result, according to the petitioners, was that their chances of promotion from the Uttar Pradesh Police Service to the Indian Police Service were reduced to vanishing point particularly in view of the provision for due regard to seniority in Rule 5 of the Indian Police Service (Appointment by Promotion) Regulations, 1955.

(3.) THE learned single Judge has held that the petitioners were substantively appointed to the Uttar Pradesh Police Force when they were recruited as Adjutants and that consequently, under Rule 21 of the Uttar Pradesh Police Service Rules, 1942, their seniority is to be determined according to the dates of those initial appointments and that in any case, in view of the assurance incorporated in the statement given in the schedule of the Uttar Pradesh Provincial Armed Constabulary Act, they are entitled to count their eervice in the Provincial Armed Constabulary for the purpose of fixing their seniority in the Uttar Pradesh Police Force. He accordingly concludes that their seniority should be fixed with reference to their initial appointments in the Provincial Armed Constabulary in 1947 or 1948 and not with reference to their subsequent appointment as Deputy Superintendents of Police with effect from 9 November 1955.