S L SHARMA Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Challenge herein is to the promotion of respondent No. 3 to the post of Superintendent. The controversy centres around the qualification and experience of respondent No. 3 to be eligible or not for promotion to the post under contention. Whereas, it is the case of petitioner herein that respondent No. 3, under the statutory rules, did not have eight years ' experience on the post of Assistant and, therefore, he was not eligible to be promoted, the case of respondents is that even though respondent No. 3 had not gained experience of eight years, as required under the Rules, he had occupied other posts which were equivalent to that of an Assistant and, therefore, no objection could possibly be had to the promotion of respondent No. 3. Rule 9(1) of the Punjab Social Welfare (State Service Class III) Rules, 1973, which deals with the matter under contention, reads thus :-

(2.) It is conceded position that insofar as respondent No. 3 is concerned, he had nearly five years ' experience on one of the posts from which posts an employee could be promoted to the post of office Superintendent. Respondent No. 3 worked on the post of Assistant for nearly five years. Respondent No. 3 had also worked on the posts of Accountant and Cashier and the total period spent by him on the said three posts i.e. Assistant, Accountant and Cashier is stated to be about 12 years. If, therefore, experience of respondent No. 3 on the posts of Accountant and Cashier is also taken into consideration, he shall be eligible for promotion but if experience on the said posts is to be excluded, obviously, he shall not be entitled to promotion.

(3.) After hearing learned counsel for the parties and going through the records of the case, this Court is of the considered view that unless in the statutory rule i.e. Rule 9(1) of 1973 Rules, there was a mention of an equivalent post, no person can be promoted unless he was to have experience on the specified posts as mentioned in the Rules i.e. Head Assistants, Deputy Superintendents, Senior Auditors and Assistants. The framers of the Rules, in their wisdom, did not mention along with four posts, referred to above, an equivalent post and the Court is not supposed to add into the Rule something which is not mentioned. Obviously, if the contention of learned counsel appearing for the respondents is accepted, it would mean adding into the statutory rule which is not permissible. Mr. Balram Gupta, however, relies upon observations made by the Supreme Court in S.B. Mathur v. Hon ble the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court and others, 1988 4 SLR 505 which are reproduced below :-