BALJIT SINGH CHAUHAN Vs. STATE OF HARYANA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In these six civil writ petitions Nos. 4787 of 1985 and 217, 348, 349, 3918 and 6048 of 1986, the Petitioners either clamour for the enforcement of the instructions of the Haryana Government dated February 9, 1979 (hereinafter referred to as the 1979 instructions) making reservation of posts in favour of Scheduled Castes/ Backward Classes and Ex-servicemen or impugn the action of the authorities in withdrawing the benefit of those instructions when the Petitioners were granted out of turn promotions. Thus the precise common point involved in all these petitions relates to the interpretation and scope of the above noted instructions. The relevant parts of these read as follows:

(2.) The first suomission of the learned Counsel for the Petitioners though seems to be plausible yet has no merit in view of the fact that we see no conflict between the 1979 instructions and 1981 rules as referred to above. Rule 9(3) does not at all refer to any reservation policy of the State Government. Rather Rule 19 of these Rules specifically saves the effect of reservation ordered by the Government in exercise of its power under Clause (4) of Article 16 of the Constitution. It reads thus:

(3.) It is then obliquely suggested by the learned Counsel that in view of the provisions of Rule 17 empowering the State Government to relax any rule while ordering promotion of a member of the Service, Rule 9(3) should be deemed to have been so relaxed when promotions of some of the Petitioners were ordered after the enforcement of these rules. The submission appears to be equally futile for the reasons that (i) the relaxation as per this rule can only be granted with respect to "any class or category of persons" and not individuals and (ii) no such relaxation had as a matter of fact been granted at the time of the respective promotions of the Petitioners concerned.