GURMAIL SINGH Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner has approached this Court with a prayer that writ in the nature of Mandamus be issued directing respondent Nos.1 and 2 to amend the final seniority list of Senior Assistants issued on 12.5.2003 as also to amend the subsequent list issued on 30.1.2007 to place the name of the petitioner above Sr. No.28 to 33.

(2.) Another prayer has been made directing respondent Nos. 1 to 3 to amend the final seniority list of Employment Generation and Training Officers issued on 25.6.2010 and modified on 8.11.2010 so as to place him over and above Smt. Balbir Kaur -respondent No.4 with a further prayer that he be promoted as Employment Generation and Training Officer w.e.f. the date when said Balbir Kaur was promoted i.e. on 30.12.2005. The petitioner in the first three paragraphs of the petition has stated that he was appointed as a Senior Assistant in the Department of Employment now called as Department of Employment Generation and Training vide letter dated 10.12.1998 on regular basis and he joined as such on 31.12.1998 whereas respondent No.4 Smt. Balbir Kaur was regularized as a Sr. Assistant from 1.7.2000. It is, thus, projected by the petitioner that he stands senior to Smt. Balbir Kaur having entered in service as a Sr. Assistant on 10.12.1998 and in this regard he has placed reliance on the rule of seniority, which talks of determination on the basis of continuous length of service with the present appointee by direct recruitment senior to the person appointed otherwise.

(3.) DURING the course of proceedings, the learned counsel for the petitioner projected before this Court that he was appointed on direct basis and if the rule of seniority had to be considered, evidently he was to be placed senior to Smt. Balbir Kaur and the respondents having denied assigned place of seniority have committed a grave error.