JAGROOP SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB AND ORS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner has a grievance against the decision of the Managing Director placing respondents 6 to 33 higher in the order of seniority by his proceedings dated 12.08.1977. The case has seen the usual tiers through an appeal to the Registrar in a petition filed under Section 69 of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 who dismissed the claim of the petitioner and still further revision filed before the Commissioner. The seniority list approved and finalized by the Managing Director was maintained and the writ petition came to be filed impugning all the three orders passed in their quasi judicial hierarchies. The case has stood on for 22 years before it could reach for final disposal and in the meanwhile the petitioner has retired from service. The case has relevance not to obtain a seniority and officiating as such senior to the other private respondents but it has relevance only for notional fixation of higher scale if the seniority position could have earned for the petitioner a promotion which in turn shall have a bearing on the terminal benefits.

(2.) The learned Counsel Ms. Bains arguing for the petitioner refers to the resolution passed by the Staff Sub Committee of the Bank on 21.02.1970 when the petitioner had been shown as senior to many of the private respondents while many others were not even in the zone of reckoning. Referring to the tentative seniority list which was issued on 21.04.1971 for the post of Senior Accountant to which post, the petitioner had been promoted by the resolution of the Staff Committee on 21.02.1970, the learned Counsel would contend that the petitioner had been shown in the serial No. 20 while many of the private respondents had been shown as juniors to him. The seniority list had been ultimately approved on 31.05.1977 which relegated the petitioner from serial No. 20 to 29 when all the private respondents had been shown as seniors above him. In the final list, the petitioner has been shown to have assumed his charge as a Senior Accountant only on 28.10.1972, when he had actually been promoted and was holding the post even since 21.02.1970. The injustice perpetrated by a wrong fixation of assumed date has been followed blindly without adverting to the actual situation that the assumption of charge as Senior Accountant was through proper resolution referred to above.

(3.) The contention in reply to the petitioner's grievance on behalf of the respondents is that Rule 1.10(a) of the Punjab State Cooperative Financing Institution Service (Common Cadre) Rules, 1970-71 provided that the integration of the existing employees of the Apex Bank of the Central Cooperative Bank could be done by the Administrative Committee only after satisfying the suitability of the employees for the posts and such appointment was required to be approved by the competent authority. The post against which the petitioner had been promoted had not been approved by the Registrar, when there existed no vacancy in the post and, therefore, the resolution of the Staff Sub Committee promoting the petitioner from Junior Accountant to Senior Accountant was not valid and seniority could not be fixed with reference to his alleged promotion on 21.02.1970.