D BALASUBRAHMANYAM Vs. SINGARENI COLLIERIES

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The second respondent, P. Kailasa Rao, had made an application to the 1st respondent, the Singareni Collieries Company Ltd., Kothagudem, for an appointment in the company. That application reads as follows :-

(2.) In the counter-affidavit filed by the Singareni Collieries, it was noted that the second respondent has been working for the past five years in the Open Cast Projects of Eastern Coal Fields Ltd., and looking after the maintenance and repairs of Heavy Earth Moving Machinery and was also responsible for planning and procurement of spares for the equipment. In the bio-data accompanying his application, the second respondent stated that, from 1/10/1975 to 1 3/10/1976 he worked for one year as a graduate apprentice in Indian Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., Burnpur, and that, from 13/10/1976, he was working in the Eastern Coal Fields Ltd., looking after the maintenance and repairs of Heavy Earth Moving Machinery such as bulldozers, scrappers, H.M. Shovels, C.P.T. Compressor, wagon drills, Russian Drills etc. It was on that basis that the second respondent and the Singareni Collieries are supporting the appointment of the second respondent as the Executive Engineer of the Company.

(3.) If I were to decide whether the second respondent deserved to be appointed as an Executive Engineer more than the writ petitioners, I would have clearly expressed my inability to do so. If compelled to embark upon such an enquiry. I would have inhesitatingly taken the assistance of a competent technician to judge the rival claims. But that is not the scope and ambit of this writ petition. I am mainly concerned in this writ petition with the question whether the Singareni Collieries, which is substantially owned and wholly controlled by the governmental authority, has adopted a proper procedure in secretly receiving an application from the second respondent for appointment and appointing him later. The fact that there are no rules prescribing standards of eligibility for direct recruitment is not denied by the respondents. In fact, direct recruitment is not one of the modes of recruitment to this post. The petitioners could then validly contend that the post can only be filled by promotion. It would, therefore, not be proper to say that the writ petitioners are not eligible to be considered for being appointed as Executive Engineers. After all, they have been the employees of the company for long and they are all engineering graduates. In the absence of any rules making the petitioners ineligible for applying to the post, the Singareni Collieries is relying upon the rules and the practice which it is following for recruitment by promotion. Such rules are clearly inapplicable for direct recruitment. The Singareni Collieries, therefore, cannot contend that the writ petitioners have not put in five years of service as Assistant Engineers, because that is not made the requirement of any valid rule. In the absence of such rules excluding the petitioners from the field of choice, the petitioners are entitled to be considered for appointment. In fact, it is argued that the rules do not provide for any direct recruitment as Executive Engineer and the method of recruitment is only by promotion. In such a case, the recruitment of the second respondent would be bad, for the reason that the petitioners were not given any notice of the recruitment. Even otherwise, public appointment should not be made in this hole and corner manner. In N. Hara Gopal v. T. T. D. Tirupathi (1986-II-LLJ-278), a Division Bench of this Court considered the question as to what would be the proper degree of recruitment publicity on public should give to the prospective appointees. In answering that question, Division Bench observed at p. 285 :