JOBI BHARALI BORAH Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. S.S. Goswami, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. T.C. Chutia, learned Addl. Senior Government Advocate for the respondents in the Labour and Family Welfare Department of the Government of Assam. Also heard Mr. S. Khound, learned counsel for the respondent No. 4.

(2.) In this writ petition, a communication dtd. 27/11/2017 from the Deputy Secretary to the Government of Assam, Labour Welfare Department to the Chief Inspector of Factories, Assam is assailed wherein it is provided that the Personnel (B) Department had regretted its inability to relax the Rule 11(2) of the Assam Factory Inspectorate Statistical Officers (Recruitment and Promotion) Service Rules, 2015 (for short 'the Rules of 2015'). The petitioner was appointed as a Computor in the Office of the Chief Inspector of Factories by an order dtd. 31/12/1998 and since then, the petitioner is serving as such. There was no service rule in the office of the Chief Inspector of Factories till the Rules of 2015 were framed and notified by the notification dtd. 30/9/2015. Rule 3 of the Rules of 2015 provides for the class and cadre which is Statistical Officer in Grade-II and Statistical Assistant in Grade-III and Computor in Grade-III. Rule 5 provides for the method of recruitment to the cadre of Computor which shall be made by direct recruitment only and the recruitment to the cadre of Statistical Assistant be made by promotion from the cadre of Computor and the recruitment to the cadre of Statistical Officer be made by promotion from the cadre of Statistical Assistant. If suitable candidates within the service are not available for the cadre of Statistical Officer, recruitment may also be made by direct recruitment. Rule 6 gives an indication that there is no provision under the Rules for making direct recruitment to the cadre of Statistical Assistant. Rule 8 provides for the academic qualification for Computor which is HSSLC pass with Economics/Mathematics/Statistics as one of the subjects and that for Statistical Officer to be Degree with Economics/Mathematics/Statistics as one of the subjects. No academic qualification is provided for the cadre of Statistical Assistant.

(3.) Rule 11 provides for the recruitment by promotion where it is provided that subject to suitability as may be decided by the Selection Committee and by the Appointing Authority, an officer belonging to the cadre of Computor shall be promoted to the cadre of Statistical Assistant and that of Statistical Assistant to the cadre of Statistical Officer. Rule 11(2) provides that a member of the cadre of Computor and Statistical Assistant shall be eligible for promotion as Statistical Assistant and Statistical Officer respectively subject to the incumbent concerned having the qualification of graduation in Economics/Mathematics/Statistics. In other words, in a situation where no qualification is prescribed for Statistical Assistant, where cadre of Statistical Assistant can be filled up only by promotion from the cadre of Computor, for promotion only those persons in the cadre of Computor who have a graduate degree in Economics/Statistics/Mathematics would be promoted, meaning thereby that those Computors who do not have the degree of Economics/Mathematics/Statistics as a qualification would not be promoted. In other words, those Computors without a graduate degree in Economics/Mathematics/Statistics will have no eligibility of promotion under the Service Rules. The Rules apparently appears to be defective in nature that no promotional avenue is provided to the Computors not having the qualification of graduate in Economics/Mathematics/Statistics.