STATE OF HARYANA Vs. UMESH KUMAR NAGPAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the present judgment, we propose to dispose of Letters Patent Appeal 734 of 1992 and Civil Writ Petition No. 6357 of 1992. The facts have been taken from the former case.

(2.) On Dec. 22, 1970, the Government of Haryana, the present appellants, issued instructions for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of the families of those Government employees who happened to die while in service. These instructions provided that one or more members of the family of the deceased employee would be considered for absorption in Government service provided certain requirements were fulfilled. On July 13, 1971, another circular was issued wherein it was made clear that it was not the intention of the Government to provide employment to the dependents of a deceased employee as a matter of course, and that the merits of each individual case were required to be carefully examined. It was also stated that this concession would be confined to only class III and class IV posts and in those cases where it was necessary to avoid exceptional hardship to the families of the deceased. Hans Raj Nagpal, father of the present respondent died on Oct. 20, 1985 while in Government service as an Assistant Excise and Taxation Officer, Gurgaon. Taking the benefit of the instructions aforesaid, the respondent who has a post-graduate degree in two subjects, applied for appointment to a Government service. He represented that as he fulfilled the qualifications for the post of Excise and Taxation Officer, he should be appointed to that post. After consideration of the matter, the respondent was on Oct. 31, 1986, offered an appointment as Taxation Inspector instead. He chose not to join this post and continued to make representation for appointment to the post of Excise and Taxation Officer and on having secured on positive response, he approached this court by way of a writ petition which was allowed on Feb. 21, 1992 and a direction was issued to the appellant-State of Haryana to appoint the respondent as Excise and Taxation Officer. Aggrieved by the aforesaid judgment, the present Letters Patent Appeal has been filed.

(3.) The learned single judge in the course of his judgment, took into account the fact that the averments in the writ petition had not been controverted as the State despite having been given a number of opportunities to do so, did not choose a number to file a reply. The respondents case in the writ petition was that the denial of the post of Excise and Taxation Officer which was a class II post on the ground that the instructions of 1971 provided for such employment only against class III and class IVposts was untenable, as the appellant-State had in a number of cases deviated from its stipulated policy and had given appointment to class I or II posts. It was specially pointed out that the son of Raghbir Singh, Vinod Dahiya son of Balbir Singh and Smt. Bimla Chohan were all given appointments against class II post and the last two had been appointed as Excise and Taxation Officer and Assistant Excise and Taxation Officer, respectively in this very department itself. The writ petitioner averred that his case had been recommended by Department to the Commissioner, Excise and Taxation and that he having higher qualifications was entitled to appointment in preference to these persons. The learned Single Judge, therefore, while relying on the judgment of this court reported as Daya Krishan Bhardwaj Vs. the Commissioner and Secretary to Government Haryana & others, 1989(5) Service Law Reporter, 153 held that there was no justifiable reason to deny an appointment to a class II post when, admittedly, such a post had been given to number of persons earlier.