RICHARD YIMTO Vs. STATE OF NAGALAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Competing claims of the parties pertaining to their seniority in service, form the subject matter of the instant appeal. The appellants as the writ petitioners being unsuccessful before the learned Single Judge have carried the challenge in appeal, assailing the judgment and order in Civil Rule No. 20(K) of 1998, rejecting their contentions.

(2.) We have heard Mr. P.N. Choudhury, learned counsel for the appellants, Mr. P.K. Khataniar, learned Senior Govt. Advocate, Nagaland for the Respondents No. 1,2 and 3 and Mr. BN Sarma, Advocate assisted by Mr. S.S. Goswami, Advocate for the Respondents No. 4, 5, 8,10, 14,15 and 16.

(3.) A few facts have to be stated. The appellants, in their writ petition, inter alia contended that they are direct recruits to the Nagaland Police Service Class I and Nagaland Police Service Class II (hereinafter referred to as the Service') having been recruited through the Nagaland Public Service Commission (hereinafter referred to as the Commission'), between 1987 and 1994 and are governed by the Nagaland Police Service (Class I and Class II) Rules, 1977 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Rules'). The posts of Deputy Superintendent of Police to which they had been so recruited had been upgraded to Class I by the revision of Pay Rules. Under Rule 18(1) of the Rules, the seniority of the members of Nagaland Police Service Class II is to be determined on the basis of the year of appointment and their position in the merit list of the Police Training College, in case of direct recruits. Persons recruited as Deputy Superintendent of Police after their selection through the Commission, have to undergo one year basic training at the North Eastern Police Academy, Barapani, before being appointed on regular basis as the Deputy Superintendents of Police in the Police Department and such training is mandatory. According to the appellants, the North Eastern Police Academy had been established at Barapani, Meghalaya by the North Eastern Council in the year 1978 and the said Academy is the Regional Training college of which the State of Nagaland is a member and has been contributing for its maintenance. In terms of Rule 18( 1) of the Rules, the Government of Nagaland had also sent some of the probationers for basic training course to Police training college other than North Eastern Police Academy (hereinafter referred to as the 'NEPA'). The State of Nagaland was yet to start a Police Training college of its own and NEPA which was established in 1978 was being used by the North Eastern States for imparting training to police officers. By Notification No.POL-1/ESTT/12/82(VOL-I) dated 24.6.1982, an amendment was introduced to the Rules and a proviso to Rule 18(1) was inserted to the effect that the provision for fixation of seniority in case of direct recruits in accordance with the position in the merit list of the Police Training college would not be applicable till a Police Training college was established in the State of Nagaland or a Regional Police Training for the North Eastern Region was established, whichever was earlier. The appellants maintained that this amendment was unwarranted and redundant inasmuch as NEPA, of which the State of Nagaland was a member had already been established in the year 1978 and the police officers of the State had been receiving training there since then. However, by Notification No.POL-1/ESTT/12/ 82(VOL-III)(A) dated 6.12.1997 the Government of Nagaland declared NEPA as the Regional Training college of Nagaland police officers for the purpose of applying Rule 18(1) of the Rules. By another memorandum of the same date i.e. 6.12.1997, a tentative seniority list of the Deputy Superintendents of Police as on 1.1.1992 was circulated wherein the inter se seniority was shown to have been computed on the basis of the merit list of the Commission and not in terms of the results of the basic training at NEPA. The grievance of the appellants / writ petitioners as set out in the writ petition vis-a-vis the private respondents is that though they had secured higher marks in the said training at NEPA, they were placed below them (private respondents) in the tentative seniority list, dehors Rule 18(1) of the Rules. In other words, the appellant/writ petitioners maintained that they were superseded by their juniors, batch wise.