BHAGWANLAL Vs. STATE OF M.P.

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner was an aspirant for promotion to the poost of Upper Division Clerk in the Tribal Welfare Department. He was superseded thrice by successive DPC s right from April, 1995 allegedly on the basis of uncommunicated confidential reports. He accordingly filed a petition which was latter transferred and registered as O.A. No. 246/88 by the State Administrative Tribunal. The Tribunal, on consideration of the matter allowed his petition and quashed his relevant C.Rs for 1982, 83 and 84. While allowing his application, Tribunal had directed as under :

(2.) PETITIONER feels aggrieved of the last portion of the directions (supra) and his learned counsel Shri Samvatsar contended that he was wrongly deprived of the arrears of pay by placing reliance on the Supreme Court Judgment in State of Haryana v. O.P. Gupta (supra), which was distinguishable from his case. According to him the Apex Court was dealing with a matter wherein promotees entitlement was not established and that is why they were denied arrears of salary, but in the case in hand learned tribunal had directed constitution of DPC from 1985 when the juniors were promoted entitling him to promotion retrospectively from that date, he cannot be divested of his right to denial the arrears of pay. He submitted further relying upon [AIR 1990 SC 2010] that since petitioner was wrongfully denied promotion, he had no occasion to work against the promoted post and he cannot be faulted for this and thus was entitled to arrears of pay.

(3.) ALL that remained to be seen was whether the tribunal had fallen in error in passing the impugned direction. It is true that, the facts of O.P. Gupta's case (supra) are not identical to that of the present case, but that does not detract from the principal of back wages being payable on work done basis. Even in the present case, petitioner could not take his promotion for granted to the post of UDC despite quashment of his adverse C.Rs by the tribunal. He was required to be accorded consideration for promotion to this post ignoring those adverse C.Rs. and it was still open for the competent authority to declare him unsuitable for such promotion and in the circumstances it cannot be pleaded that he would have been automatically promoted in 1985 and was prevented from working against the promoted post. Moreover, it falls within the domain of the tribunal to pass an appropriate direction in tune with the facts and circumstances of the case. Such direction warrants no interference even if a different view was possible in the matter.