BHUVAN CHANDRA PANDEY Vs. STATE OF UTTARANCHAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) J. C. S. Rawat, J. 1. By means of this Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have sought the following reliefs : "i) To issue writ, rule or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned order dated 2-05- 2006 and order dated 6-3-1997 (Annexure 2 and 17 to the writ petition) and seniority list dated 19-02- 1994 and 9-4-2002 passed by the respondents contained in the Annexure-14 and 16 to this writ pe tition, so far as the placement of the private respondents above the petitioners by declaring the same illegal and de-hors the rules. (ii) Issue any writ order or direction in the nature of mandamus com manding the respondents to de clare the petitioners as senior to the Adhoc Junior Engineers those were conditional appointed adhoc basis and put on probation against the substantive post on 12-12-1990, whereas the petition ers were directly selected by the Public Service Commission on 06-01-1990. (iii) Issue a writ order or direction in the nature of quo-warranto against the private respondents for their induction in service and subsequent regularization and continuance in service and taking illegal benefit of promotions and seniority over the petitioners and also restrained them to continue to be senior over the petitioners. (iv) Issue writ, rule or direction in the nature of mandamus command ing the respondents that till the correction of the final seniority list the respondents shall be re strained to consider the promo tions on the basis of seniority list of 1994 and 9-4-2002 and fur ther to restrain to the respondents no. 1 and 2 not to made any pro motion on the basis of tentative list and without determining the seniority of all the employees be longs to the junior engineer and Assistant Engineer also to main tain status-quo antique prior to 1994 and cancel all the promo tions made on the basis of the aforesaid seniority list in respect of the adhoc junior engineers. (v) Issue any other direction as this Hon'ble Court may deem fit and proper under the circumstances of the case. (vi) Award the costs of the writ peti tion to the petitioner. "

(2.) THE UP Public Service Commis sion (hereinafter referred as 'commission') invited the applications for ap pointment on the post of 1400 Junior Engineers (Civil), out of which 1000 were for plain area and 400 were for hill area. Pursuant to the said advertise ment, the petitioners submitted their applications and were finally selected by the Commission on the post of Junior Engineers and the selection list was pub lished on 6-01-1990. THE Commission recommended and for Warded the list of the selected candidates to the Govern ment according to U. P Public Works Department Subordinates Engineering Rules, 1951. In pursuance of the recom mendation, the petitioners were ap pointed as Junior Engineer (Civil), P. W. D. on 2/-/-1990. In the meantime, the Department has appointed several persons as Junior Engineer on adhoc basis for a period of one year in the year 1984 in order to meet the necessity of work. In exercise of its power conferred under Article 309 of the Constitution of India, the Government framed U. P. Regularization of Adhoc Appointment (within the purview of Public Service Commission) Rules, 1979 (hereinafter re ferred as Regularization Rules, 1979) and these Rules were enforced w. e. f. 14-05- 1979. Rule 4 of U. P. Regularization Rules, 1979 provides that any person who was directly appointed on adhoc basis prior to 01-01-1977 and is con tinuous in service and also possesses the requisite qualification and had com pleted three years continuous service will be considered for regularization. Pursu ant to the said Regularization Rules, 1979 the services of suitable adhoc Jun ior Engineers were regularized on 14-02-1990. THEreafter, the Engineer in Chief respondent no. 4 issued the proposed seniority list of the Junior Engineers and the objections were invited from the ag grieved persons. In the said list, the names of the petitioners were placed below the adhoc appointees. THE repre sentation of the petitioners was rejected and the final seniority list was issued placing the names of the petitioners below the adhoc appointees. THEreafter, the petitioners submitted their represen tations against the final seniority list. Ul timately, the said representations were rejected by the respondent on 6-3-1997. THE petitioners had challenged the said seniority list and the regularization of services of the adhoc Junior Engineers on the ground that no selection commit tee was formed to recommend the names to regularize the services of the junior engineers. It was further chal lenged that the regularization of the re spondents was not in accordance with the Rules and no appointment letter had been issued to them prior to the joining of the petitioners. THE approval order of regularization dated 14-02-1990 passed by the respondent nos. 1 to 4 cannot be treated as appointment and the adhoc Junior Engineers cannot claim seniority only on the basis of the approval for regularization. THE competent authority should have issued appointment letter to those persons whose services had been regularized under said Rules. THE senior ity of the adhoc Junior Engineers would reckon from the date they would have received and joined the services in pur suance of the said appointment letter. When the respondents no. 1 to 4 did not pay any heed to the requests of the petitioners, the present writ petition has been filed before this Court.

(3.) BEFORE dealing with the submis sions of the parties, we would like to dis cuss the legal position. The U. P. Public Service (Tribunals) Act was enacted in the year 1976 for the adjudication of the disputes pertaining to employment mat ters of public servant of the State Gov ernment and the employees of the Gov ernment Corporations, Companies and local authorities etc. and the jurisdiction of the civil courts for redressal of their grievances was taken away. This Act was amended time to time. The erstwhile State of U. P had taken a decision con sidering the increased work load of the courts and delay in disposal of the serv ice matters to have a separate Service Tribunal. The purpose of creating a Tri bunal has been indicated in the State ment of Objects of the Act which reads as under : "the number of cases in the courts pertaining to the employment matters of the government servants was con stantly on the increase. This, besides increasing the workload in the courts also delayed considerably the disposal of such cases. Such litigation also in volved money and time of govern ment servants. In these circum stances, it was decided to establish Public Services Tribunals to deal with cases pertaining to employment mat ters of government servants and also of the employees of the local authori ties and government corporations and companies, so that the employees may get quick and inexpensive justice. It was also decided that after the establishment of the tribunals such suits be barred from being filed in the sub ordinate courts. "