CAPTAIN HARDEV SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners joined the Government Medical College, Patiala in the M.B.B.S. Course in the year 1964 and in 1968 were students in the final year, having cleared all the professional examinations in the very first chance. As there was a paucity of doctors and engineers in the services of the Armed Forces during that period, the State of Punjab, on the urging of the Central Government, floated a Scheme for attracting young persons to join the Armed Forces for according preferential treatment, assuming them that special concession would be shown to them on their re-employment under the State services on their discharge from the Army. The instructions in this regard provided that those persons who were already in the Armed Forces or joined within certain specified dates and thereafter sought appointment in the services of the Punjab Government, would be given preferential treatment by conferring upon them the benefit of seniority, increment, pension, etc. Para 18 of the policy letter No. 3068-4 G.S.I. 64/10932 dated April 6, 1964, reproduced in the writ petition, however, made a special provision for Engineering and Medical Students to the effect that pre-final and final year students of the Engineering Colleges in the State would be appointed as Temporary Assistant Engineers in the relevant branches of the State Public Works Department from the dates of the grant of Provisional Short Services Regular Commissions to them and they would be deemed to have been seconded to military duty from the said dates. It was also directed that special posts should be created for this purpose if sufficient vacancies were not available for the appointment of such persons as Temporary Assistant Engineers within the sanctioned cadres of the various branches of the department and on their release from military services, these persons would be absorbed in the posts on which they were originally appointed and officials temporarily appointed against those posts would be liable to reversion or discharge. In the last part of the paragraph, it was clarified that the instructions contained therein would also apply mutatis mutandis to medical students studying in the medical institutions in the State.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that taking advantage of the aforesaid concessions and the promise of preferential treatment, they sought Short Service Commissions in the Army and were actually taken as Second Lieutenants on that basis on 11.12.1968 as per Annexure P-7. On their release in 1974, however, they once again appeared before the Punjab Public Service Commission and were formally inducted in to the P.C.M.S.-II after their candidature had been approved by the Commission. The petitioner thereafter filed representations before the State Government that the benefit of their military service from 1969 to 1974 should be granted to them but this claim was declined on the ground that as they were appointed in 1974 and their appointments had not been made against the reserved vacancies, they were not entitled to the benefit of military service. Aggrieved thereby, the present writ petition has been filed by the petitioners.

(3.) Mr. Mohinderjit Singh Sethi, learned counsel for the petitioners, has argued that from the very wording of the instructions, referred to above, it was clear that for those who volunteered for the State Service Commission in the Armed Forces would be deemed to have been appointed as Temporary Assistant Engineer in the State Public Works Department or in the case of medical students, in the State Medical Services but from the date of their appointment as such they were to be deemed to have been seconded to the Armed Forces. He has especially emphasised the words 'deemed to have been seconded' in order to show that the appointment of the petitioners was by a deemed process, a service under the Punjab Government and on the release of such persons, they were to be absorbed on the posts on which they were initially appointed in the Punjab State Services. He has further urged that merely because the petitioners sought a fresh appointment in 1974, would not preclude them from claiming the benefit of military service in view of the instructions referred to above as their appointments had been made under those instructions.