DHIRENDUTTA Vs. NEEPCO

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner was promoted to the post of Senior Manager in the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited (for short, "the NEEPCO") in 1997 and in this writ petition, he has prayed that he should be deemed to be promoted to the post of Senior Manager with effect from 1994 when his juniors were promoted.

(2.) The facts briefly are that the petitioner joined the Public Works Department, Assam as an Assistant Engineer in 1966 and he was promoted to the post of SDO in the year 1972. In January, 1977 he joined the NEEPCO as SDO on deputation. He was promoted to the post of Executive Engineer in the NEEPCO and in 1983 he was absorbed in the NEEPCO with permission from his parent Department, Government of Assam. In 1988, he was promoted to the post of Superintendent Engineer in the NEEPCO. By an office order issued under Memo dated 18.4.1994, a Departmental Promotion Committee (for short, "the DPC") was constituted for considering promotion to the posts of Additional Chief Engineer (C). On the basis of the recommendation of the said DPC, Shri Beda Prasad Barua, Sri Pijush Kanti Bhattacharjee, Sri Utpal Borah and Shri Tarun Chandra Borgohain working as Superintendent Engineer (C) under the NEEPCO were promoted to the posts of Additional Chief Engineer (C) by order dated, 7.6.1994 of the Chief (Human Resources), On the basis of the recommendation of the said DPC again Sri Pradip Kumar Deka and Sri Niharendu Bhattacharjee who were working as Superintendent Engineer (C) were also promoted to the posts of Additional Chief Engineer (C) by order dated 1.3.1995. On the said recommendation of the DPC, Smti Kavita Devi who was working as Superintending Engineer (C) in the Neepco was also promoted as Additional Chief Engineer (C) by office order dated 30.3.1995. All the aforesaid officers, Sri Pijush Kanti Bhattacharjee, Sri Tarun Chandra Borgohain, Sri Pradip Kumar Deka, Sri Niharendu Bhattacharjee and Smti Kavita Devi were junior to the petitioner as Executive Engineer, but the petitioner was not promoted to the post of Additional Chief Engineer (C), Hence, the petitioner submitted a representation dated 30.6.1995 to the Chairman & Managing Director NEEPCO requesting him to review his case for promotion. Thereafter, by office order issued under Memo dated 28.5.1996 another DPC was constituted and on the basis of recommendation of the said DPC, Sri Ashok Kumar Dam who was working as Superintendent Engineer (C) in the NEEPCO was promoted to the post of Additional Chief Engineer (C) by office order dated 20.8.1996. Sri Ashok Kumar Dam was also junior to the petitioner as Executive as Executive Engineer, but the petitioner was not promoted. By office order issued under Memo dated 25.8.1997 another DPC was constituted and on the recommendation of the said DPC 12 persons including the petitioner were promoted to the post of Additional Chief Engineer (C) by order dated 1.10.1997. The grievance of the petitioner is that the petitioner was shown against serial No. 11 in the said promotion order dated 1.10.1997 but the officers placed against serial Nos. 1 to 9 in the said promotion order were junior to the petitioner at one stage or the other, and this lower position in the said promotion order dated 1.10.1997 would affect the consideration of the petitioner for promotion to the post of Chief Engineer. The petitioner has prayed that the recommendations of the DPC held in 1994, 1996 and 1997 be reviewed and that the petitioner be deemed to be promoted to the post of senior Manager with effect from 1994 when his juniors were promoted.

(3.) Mr. AK Phukan, learned counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the old promotion Policy and Rules for regular employees of the NEEPCO were in force prior to 1.4.1997 as well as the revised NEEPCO Promotion Policy and Rules with effect from 2.4.1997 provided that promotions to the post of SE and above would be purely on the basis of merit with seniority taking the secondary role. Thus, seniority of the officers had to be taken into consideration while recommending promotions to the posts of Additional Chief Engineer. But the DPC which met in 1994, 1996 and 1997 for considering promotion to the posts of Additional Chief Engineer (C) ignored the seniority of the petitioner altogether. To illustrate this point, Mr. Phukan referred to the proceedings of the DPC which met on 16.5.1994 to show that although the DPC assessed the petitioner as well as Sri Dilip Kumar Nath, Sri Ashok Kumar Dam, Sri Madhav Chandra Sarma, Sri Birendra Nath Acharyya and Sri Mrinal Deka as 'good', the said DPC placed the petitioner in 15th position and placed the aforesaid officers who were junior to the petitioner in serve in 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th and 14th position in order of merit. Mr. Phukan further argued that paragraph-4 of the said old Promotion Policy and Rule for regular employees of NEEPCO further provides that the qualifying period for promotion from grade to the next higher grade in case of Engineers would be 5 years with at least two years service in the field establishment. The petitioner satisfied this requirement of qualifying period inasmuch as he bad around 5 years experience in the field establishment. Although, Shri U. Borah, Sri N. Bhattacharjee and Smti Kavita Devi did not have field experience and Sri P. Deka and Sri P. Bhattacharjee had field experience of less than two years, they were all recommended for promotion by the DPC and were in fact promoted to the post of Additional Chief Engineer (C) prior to the petitioner. According to Mr. Phukan therefore this is a fit case in which this court should direct the respondents to hold a review DPC for reconsidering the case of the petitioner for promotion to the post of Additional Chief Engineer (C) with effect from 1994. Mr. Phukan further explained that unless such direction is issued by the Court, the petitioner wiill not get a chance for being promoted to the post of Chief Engineer redesignated as DGM and GM under the revised promotion policy and Rules of the NEEPCO effective from 2.4.1997.