O P BHAGAT Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) O.P. Bhagat, who has since retired during the pendency of this petition, has taken exception to order of promotion of B.I.S. Brar-respondent No. 3, which promotion, he pleads, was given without considering his claim and prior right to the post of Joint Provincial Transport Controller. The facts need a necessary mention.

(2.) Petition was appointed as General Manager on August 18,1972. He successfully completed his two years probation period as General Manager and, thus, came to occupy the said post on substantive basis. Earlier, the post of Secretary Regional Transport Authority was one of the source from which one could be promoted as General Manager but lateron the posts of Secretary, Regional Transport Authority as well as General Manager were equated with common seniority and inter-transferable with each other till the year 1980 when the department of Transport was split up into two wings known as 'Commercial Wing' and 'Non-Commercial Wing'. The appointments to the posts of Deputy Transport Controller/Deputy Director State Transport and Joint Provincial Transport Controller are governed under the Punjab Transport Department (State Service Class-I) Rules, 1963. Rule 6 deals with the method of recruitment to the aforesaid posts, relevant extract of which is as under:-

(3.) The only contention of Mr. Gopal Mahajan, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner is that the post of Joint Provincial Transport Controller became available in 1980 and at that time, admittedly, petitioner was the only eligible person to occupy the said post. However, this post was kept vacant even though petitioner was asked to officiate on the said post in his own pay scale till 1987 when respondent No. was promoted to the said post without considering his (petitioner's) claim. In the context of the fact that post became available in the year 1980 when petitioner alone was eligible, it is further maintained by learned counsel that consideration of the post under contention had to be taken at the time when the same became available and not seven years thereafter as has been precisely done in the present case.