SURESH KUMAR Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER has approached this Court with a grievance that after his transfer from District Sirsa, where he was appointed on 19.12.1984 to District Ambala, vide order dated 21.05.1986, he has not been assigned seniority as per his date of appointment.

(2.) COUNSEL for the petitioner contends that the petitioner was appointed as Patwari in District Sirsa on 19.12.1984 on regular basis. He was, vide order dated 21.05.1986 (Annexure P-1), transferred on administrative grounds from District Sirsa to District Ambala. This transfer was not on the request of the petitioner but the respondents have proceeded to transfer him on their own. After his transfer, petitioner was not assigned the seniority in District Ambala by counting his previous service in District Sirsa and he has been put at the tail-end of the seniority list in District Ambala when the same was prepared taking his date of appointment as 21.05.1986 the date of his transfer. This, the counsel for the petitioner contends, is not sustainable in the light of the fact that the petitioner stood transferred by the respondents on administrative basis. Although the statutory Rules provide that the seniority is to be maintained at the district level as the cadre is a district cadre but when without the consent of the petitioner, he has been transferred out of the District of his appointment, his claim of seniority from the initial date of appointment cannot be taken away for an act of transfer over which the petitioner has no control. He, accordingly, prays for direction to the respondents to fix his seniority in District Ambala and thereafter, in Yamuna Nagar District where the petitioner is presently posted after the bifurcation of the District Ambala into Districts Ambala and Yamuna Nagar.

(3.) I have considered the submissions made by the counsel for the parties and have gone through the records of the case.