J.B. MUDGAL Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The present petition has been preferred under Article 226 of the Constitution of India seeking issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus directing the official respondents to appoint the petitioner on the post of Director from the date the post fell vacant and from the date other persons were appointed to this post i.e. 8/4/2015, or in the alternative, promote him from the date his junior Naresh Sardana was appointed to the post of Director i.e. 19/3/2016.

(2.) Learned Senior counsel for the petitioner contended that the petitioner joined as a Chief Engineer on 2/7/2014 and is the senior-most on that post in all three utilities i.e. HVPN, UHBVNL and DHBVNL, after Subhash Deswal, who was placed under suspension w.e.f. 25/7/2014. In order to fill up the post of Director in the said utilities, the State Government issued a notification dtd. 10/2/2015 (Annexure P-1), which laid down the following criteria:

(3.) He has further submitted that in the month of April, 2015, six posts of Technical Directors fell vacant. Vide order dtd. 2/3/2015, the Additional Chief Secretary clarified that a committee of all four Managing Directors of the HPUs would evaluate 12 candidates i.e. twice the number of vacancies. It was further stated that amongst those found suitable, the senior most personnel would be selected. The petitioner was also considered amongst these 12 candidates and the case of 06 of the senior most Chief Engineers was considered again. However, the committee only recommended four persons for the post of Technical Directors. The case of the petitioner was not considered even though he was one of the 12 senior most candidates and two posts continuously remained vacant from 8/3/2015 to 9/4/2015.