BIBHABANANDA CHOUDHURY Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE order dated 25.3.2009 passed by the Gauhati Municipal Corporation ('the GMCH/Corporation'), as well as, the Gradation List of Asstt Engineers (Civil and Electrical) of the Corporation of the even dates based thereon, are in assailment in the instant proceeding. As during the pendency of the writ petition, the respondent No. 7 was promoted as Assistant Executive Engineer (Mechanical) by order dated 26.5.2009 by the said authority, the challenge has been extended thereto, as well, by an interim application registered as Miscellaneous Case No. 1368/2009.

(2.) I have heard Mr. H. Buragohain, Learned Counsel for the petitioners, Mr. H.K. Sarma, Learned Standing Counsel for the Corporation, Mr. R. Goswami, Learned Counsel for respondent No. 3 and Mr. D.C. Borah, Learned Counsel for respondent No. 7.

(3.) THE petitioners have claimed to have joined the Corporation in the year 1981 as diploma holder Jr. Engineers on being recommended by the Assam Municipal Public Service Commission ('the Commission'). In due course, they were promoted to the post of Asstt. Engineer in the year 1991 and assert to have regularized as such with effect from 26.11.1991. According to them, the private respondents were appointed as Asstt. Engineers with the Corporation on temporary/ad hoc basis under Regulation 3(f) of the Assam Public Service Commission (Limitation of Functions) Regulation Act, 1951 ('the Regulations') initially for a period of four months between 1989 and 1990. This induction of the private respondents, the petitioners have averred, had been without any advertisement or in compliance of any process prescribed by law for public appointment. They admit that some of the said respondents were regularized as Asstt. Engineers, w.e.f. 20.6.1992 and 13.7.1997. They, therefore, assert that the respondents are all juniors to them in the cadre of Asstt. Engineer. They have complained that the authorities of the Corporation without finalizing the gradation list of Asstt. Engineers, have been promoting incumbents therefrom to the post Asstt. Executive Engineer on their own choice without heeding to their claims of superior seniority. They have stated that in the draft gradation lists, in which they were shown to be at higher positions over the respondents, the same eventually were not finalized. In the subsequent provisional gradation list of 2008, however, the private respondents were shown to be senior to them. With reference to respondent No. 7 the petitioners have asserted that not only his services in the post of Asstt. Engineer had not been regularized till the impugned order was passed, he was accommodated in a separate cadre of Mechanical Engineer created for him on extraneous considerations. As by the impugned order, the services of the private respondents in the post of Asstt. Engineer have been regularized with effect from the date of their initial ad hoc/temporary appointment under regulation 3(f), the petitioners seek judicial intervention for redress.