D Y MOGHE Vs. SINGARENI COLLERIES CO LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners were Additional Chief Mining Engineers in the Singareni Collieries Company Limited, Kothagudem. They were aspirants for promotion as General Managers in their turn according to seniority in 1986. The complaint of the petitioners in these petitions is that they were superseded by their juniors in the feeder category for promotion. They claim that the principle which the respondent-company has adopted for advancement in service is promotion on the basis of seniority-cum-merit which is the same as seniority-cum-fitness. This principle, according to the petitioners, is different from promotion on the basis of selection based entirely or predominantly on merit, in which system seniority may have no place. The principle of seniority-cum-merit or seniority -rum-fitness visualises only rejection of the unfit. It does not enable the employer to promote a junior on the ground that he is more fit or more meritorious. In other words, a senior has to be considered first; and only if he is found to be unfit for promotion or lacks on merit of the optimum standard to be promoted, can a junior be promoted. If both the senior and the junior are found eligible and fit for promotion, a junior cannot be promoted while retaining the senior in the lower position for the reason that the junior is more. fit. Petitioners submit that if promotion is based on comparative merit, seniority can have no place, since ranking has to be made on merit irrespective of seniority. Selection on the basis of merit, in other words, does not involve ranking according to seniority, after selection. A system where seniority counts to any extent, can therefore only mean rejection of the senior only if he is found to be unfit or lacks in merit for promotion. It is the alternative case of the petitioners that they have advanced in service on the basis of merit assessed by performance-evaluations, and it cannot be as if for the purpose of the present promotions, they are found to be unfit or are inferior to any of the respondents. They assert that there has not been a fair and reasonable evaluation or merit and promotability on the basis of any known standard and that personal likes and dislikes of the men who constituted the Departmental Promotion Committee, their unregulated whims and inexplicable fancies got the better of reason and fairness which resulted in junior favourites being chosen for top managerial positions in spite of the exemplary performance to the credit of the petitioners.

(2.) Counsel submits that the petitioners have been subsequently considered and have actually been promoted during the pendency of the Writ Petitions. Petitioners are not, however, satisfied with the subsequent promotion, since they feel that their claims were overlooked when their juniors were promoted in 1986, and the subsequent promotion three years later is little solace to them.

(3.) I will refer to the facts in some detail. Petitioner in W.P.No.16477/86 joined service of the respondent company on 8-1-1962. He was promoted to E-7 grade as Additional Chief Mining Engineer in the pay scale of Rs.2,800 100-3,600 on 28-8-78. During the period of 28 years of his service, he had acquired awards and special commendations on a number of occasions. Though he was a mining Engineer, he was put in charge of the main workshops at Kothagudem in the year 1977 and was selected for training/study tour under the Colombo plan sponsored by Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. In the year 1980 while he was working as Divisional Superintendent, Ramagundam-II Division, he was appointed as project Administrator of Coal Chemical Complex, with a special allowance. He was sent for a study tour to Japan and Australia in 1981 and for senior management training to the Administrative Staff College, Hyderabad, in 1983. The mines which he was entrusted with at Godavari Khani acquired national productivity prize among the Singareni Collieries. Though he was only in Grade-7 post of Additional Chief Mining Engineer, he was actually put in charge of the post of General Manager in E-8 Grade for a fairly long period of over one and half years prior to 31-10-1987. It is his submission that one of his seniors Sri A. Ramaswamy and himself had some disagreement while both of them were working as General Managers, the former on a regular basis and the petitioner on an officiating basis. Petitioner submits that Sri Ramaswamy was nursing that grievance even after he became a Director and wreaked vengeance by tarnishing his service records when he happened to be his reporting officer for a period of one and half months, relevant to the reporting year 1986. Petitioner submits that according to the guidelines issued by the company, only such superior officers under whom a subordinate had worked for not less than four months could write his confidential record. Petitioner asserts that he had worked for a period of ten and half months under Mr. Paranjpe and only one and half months under Mr. Ramaswamy. Instead of requiring Sri Paranjpe to make entries in his confidential record, Sri Ramaswamy himself made adverse entries and scrupulously kept back such entries from the petitioner, and he himself sat in the Committee which decided to supersede the petitioner for promotion. The adverse entries which Sri Ramaswamy had made on 12-2-1986 were expunged by the Director (Personnel) in his letter dt.9-4-1987. The respondents did not consider this fact and review his case thereafter. Petitioner assails as unfair, the proceedings of the departmental promotion committee resulting in his supersession and the consequential preference of his juniors,