S RAJINDER PAL SINGH Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) RAJINDER Pal Singh and 124 others, petitioners, are the employees of the office of the Accountant General Punjab, posted at Chandigarh The entire office of the said Accountant General used to he at Simla before 1964. On January 21, 1964, an office order (Annexure 'a') was issued by the Accountant General, desiring those officials of that office, who wished to be transferred to Chandigarh, to furnish their willingness to the Administration Section of the office by the 30th ot January 1964 as it was decided that a part of that office might be shifted to Chandigarh. It was made clear in the office order, which was circulated to all the sections in the office that Government will have no obligation either at that time or in the near future thereafter to provide any residential accommodation to the staff which might choose to go to Candigarh. On February 10, 1964, another office order (Annexure "aa") was issued by the office of the Accountant General intimating to the officials that it has been decided to shift the Outside Audit Department and the Works Audit Department wings of the office, which were till then located at Simla to Chandigarh, very shortly. It was added in the order that ''in consequence of this change, the Headquarters of these Wings will change to Chandigarh. " All the persons who were at that time working in the Public Works Inspection Parties and Outside Audit Department Field Parties, were required to furnish their willingness or otherwise to the Administration Section of the office not later than February 18, 1964. It was also mentioned in the order that in ease no option was received by the prescribed date, it would be presumed that the officials concerned were not willing to he sent out to Chandigarh. Reference was also made to the earlier office order, dated January 21, 1964 (Annexure 'a' ). It is the admitted case of both sides that all the petitioners expressed their willingness to be transferred to Chandigarh in pursuance of the abovesaid office orders. The petitioners have filed as Annexure "j" to the writ petition, a copy of the circular letter issued by the office of the Accountant General to all Public Works Divisional Officers of Punjab Stale and other concerned offices, on February 22, 1964 about the shifting of the Works Audit Department wing froms Simla to Candigarh.

(2.) ON March 2, 1961, the petitioners submitted a representation (Annuxnre 'd') to the Accountant Genera) claiming special compensatory allowance in terms of the Central Government's letter, dated July 17, 1958 (Annexure "c ) for a period of one year as had been allowed to the officials of the Punjab and Himachal Pradesh Circle of the Geological Survey of India (Annexure 'f') at the time of the shifting of their office from Simla to Chandigarh in March, 1961 and to the staff of the Central Excise Department on the move of that office from Ambala to Chandigarh in 1961. A similar printed representation was later on submitted by the petitioners in 1965 (copy of Annexure E) to the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The special compensatory allowance was claimed for one year at 12 1/2 per cent of the pay admissible to the petitioners. Reference was made to the previous application submitted to the Accountant General, and it was stated that though the petitioners had waited for over a year, they had not received even a formal reply to their demand, and that it was only when they waited on the Accountant General on March 4, 1965, that they were informed of the demand having been rejected. Justification for the demand was sought to be made out in the representation. By letter, dated July 12, 1965 (Annexure R-3), the Deputy Accountant General, Punjab, Chandigarh, informed the petitioners that the matter regarding the grant of special compensatory allowance had been considered in consultation with the Government of India, Ministry of Finance, and it had been decided that the request of the staff at Chandigarh for the grant of the said allowance could not he acceded to as the movement of the staff from Simla to Chandigarh could not be said to be "unusual and unforeseen in character" in terms of the Ministry of Finance, Office memo. , dated 6th January, 1964. This situation led the petitioners to file the present writ petition in this Court on June 23, 1965, praying for a writ of mandamus or certiorari or other appropriate writ being issued directing the respondents (the Union of India and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India), to comply with the provisions of the letter of the Government of India, dated July 17, 1958 (Annexure 'c'), and to grant the petitioners special compensatory allowance admissible to them in terms thereof.

(3.) THE petition has been contested on behalf of the respondents. Besides pleading that the case of the petitioners does not fall within the four corners of the above-mentioned letter of the Government of India, dated July 17, 1958, it has been averred on behalf of the Union of India that the petitioners have no legal right which might be justiciable in a Court on merits. It has been stated that the Headquarters of the office of the Accountant General, Punjab, have not been shifted to Chandigarh, and still continue at Simla, and it is only those persons who volunteered to be shifted from Simla to Chandigarh, who were so transferred. The concessions referred to in the Central Government's letter dated July 17, 1958, are stated to he available only to such Government servants, whose headquarters have been shifted from their existing location to some other city or town in pursuance of Government's policy to relieve pressure for office accommodation in cities like Delhi; whereas in the instant case, the respondents contend that the headquarters continue to he at Simla even after the shifting of certain wings to Chandigarh in March 1964. The shifting is stated to have been effected not in pursuance of Government policy, but primarlly because large number of employees of the Accountant General's office stationed at Simla had been pressing for postings to Chandigarh, as would be evident from the resolution of the staff association (Annexure R-l), and because some of the employees were required to vacate the residential accommodation with them in Simla as a result of the Punjab Government decision to shift their camp offices to Simla during summer 1964.