GUPESHWAR BHATT Vs. STATE OF RAJASTHAN

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner belongs to the Rajasthan Administrative Service, to be shortly stated hereinafter as the 'R.A.S.', constituted by the Rajasthan Administrative Service Rules, 1954, hereinafter to be referred, as the R.A.S. Rules. He joined this service on 26 -8 -55 as Assistant Collector and Magistrate and was confirmed in the R.A.S. on 27 -8 -57. The R.A.S. comprises of three scales of pay:, one is the ordinary time scale 375 -850, the other is the senior scale 700 -1,100, and third is the selection grade 1,100 -1,500. The promotion to the senior scale of the R.A.S. from the ordinary scale of the R.A.S. is both on the basis of seniority -cum -merit as well as strictly on merit. Likewise, the selection to the selection grade is from the senior scale and this is again both on the basis of seniority -cum -merit and strictly on merit. The petitioner was selected in the selection grade of the R.A.S. strictly on the basis of merit, i.e., against the merit quota, in January, 1967. He was thereafter promoted to the selection grade of R.A.S. with effect from 26 -12 -70 again against the merit quota, that is, strictly on merit. Sometime after his appointment to the selection grade Shri Guman Singh's case before their Lodships of the Supreme Court came to be decided on 26 -7 -71. It is the decision of Shri Guman Singh's case that has resulted in the reversal of the petitioner's fortune. The State Government thought that in view of what their Lordships had laid down in Guman Singh's case they had to review the cases of all the promotees to the selection grade of the R.A.S. on the basis of the circular that case to be struck down by their Lordships in the aforesaid case. Accordingly, the Government constituted a departmental committee and on the basis of the recommendations made by that committee the Government superseded the previous orders and instead appointed other officers in the selection grade of the R.A.S. with effect from 26 -12 -70. I may read the impugned order of the State Government, dated 12 -4 -73. .........[vernacular ommited text]...........

(2.) THE petitioner challenges this order. He contends (1) that under the R.A.S. Rules once the Government had made the appointment of an officer to the selection grade in accordance with Rule 32 of the R.A.S. Rules the Government have no power whatsoever to cancel the appointment. In other words, the Government do not have any power of reviewing the previous order. (2) The second contention of the petitioner is that the Supreme Court case on which the Government purperted to rely did not authorise the Government to reopen the cases of other persons who were not before their Lordships of the Supreme Court either in the appeal filed by Shri Guman Singh or in the writ petitions that were disposed of by the same judgment, The petitioner maintains that the operative part of the judgment confined the reviewing of the cases only in respect of the respondents who were before their Lordships and that too vis -a -vis Shri Guman Singh and not others. The State Government had further not followed the principles of natural justice as they did not afford any opportunity to the petitioner to show cause why his appointment be not cancelled.

(3.) I have to ask myself the following questions and answer them :