TANMAY BANERJEE Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The subject-matter of challenge in this writ petition is a resolution dated 30th June, 2009 adopted by the Khardah Municipality. The Petitioners amongst others were selected for appointment to Group 'D' vacancies. They were ultimately appointed and an approval was obtained of such appointments but due to inadvertent mistake twelve out of those 50 persons were designated as assistant pipeline mistry whereas they were in fact selected for appointment to the post of group 'D' staff that mistake was sought to be corrected by the aforesaid resolution ten out of those twelve persons have been re-designated as pump operators-cum-helpers and the balance two of them have been re-designated as helpers to electrician the designation pump operators-cum helpers has further been corrected to read as nightguard-cum-operators-helpers by a resolution dated 5th September,2009.that resolution is also under challenge

(2.) the learned advocate appearing for the Petitioners submitted that the Petitioners by their letter deted 3rd February 2009 requested the chairman to give them the scale payable to the assistant pipeline mistry in order to defeat the aforesaid claim the resolution dated 30th june 2009 and 5th September,2009 were adopted

(3.) I have not been impressed by the submissions advanced by the learned advocate, for the Petitioners he has not disputed before me that the Petitioners applied for appointment to the post of group 'D' staff they were selected for appointment to the group 'D' post they were appointed to group 'D' posts subsequent to the approval of appointments an inadvertent error indicated above took place as a result whereof the Petitioners were designated as assistant pipeline mistry the mere fact that the approval to the appointment was made Way back in 2003 does not render the step taken by the municipality bad for no right can accrue on the basis of a mistaken step passage of time cannot alter the situation the cause of action arose only upon detection of the mistake consequent to the letter of the writ Petitioners indicated above. As a matter of fact, in the Limitation Act, a specific provision has been made under Section 17(c), which entitles a person to seek appropriate relief in respect of a cause of which he was ignorant as a consequence of a mistake.