SINGHESHWAR PRASAD SAH Vs. STATE OF BIHAR

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioner was granted benefit of 3rd A.C.P. by virtue of notification contained in Annexure-3 dated 12.12.2011 on completion of 30 years of service on the post of Correspondence Clerk. The benefit which accrued in favour of the petitioner was withdrawn by yet another office order dated 11.5.2012 which came to be issued under the signature of the Superintending Engineer, Patna Building Circle, Patna which is Annexure-4. By virtue of this decision based on yet another decision dated 12.4.2012 the third A.C.P. granted to the petitioner was withdrawn and direction for recovery was also issued. This order is under challenge in the present writ application. Stand of the petitioner in the writ application is that the petitioner was working as a work charged employee when necessity for fitting up certain posts including the post of Correspondence Clerk arose. By virtue of a decision contained in Annexure-1 dated 4.9.1979 a notification came to be issued where the petitioner was appointed as a Correspondence Clerk provisionally and then continued in that post till he was granted the benefits of 1st, 2nd and 3rd A.C.P.

(2.) A plea is now taken on behalf of the respondents that there was a serious omission in granting benefit of 3rd A.C.P. to the petitioner because of the over sight. The petitioner, according to the respondents, had been granted the benefit of substantive promotion from Class-IV to Class-III post and, therefore, he is not entitled to the benefit of 3rd A.C.P.

(3.) From a reading of Annexure-1 it is evident that the petitioner was not holder of Class-IV post in substantive capacity. He was a work charged employee and not on regular establishment. He was picked up from the pool to be appointed initially provisionally as Correspondence Clerk on which post he continued in all these years. There is no notification showing that the petitioner was working on Class IV post in substantive capacity and Annexure-1 is some kind of promotion to the petitioner. In fact, reading of Annexure-1 would show that it was an appointment on the post of Correspondence Clerk and not promotion.