SANJAY KUMAR JHA Vs. STATE OF JHARKHAND

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard the parties.

(2.) Petitioner has approached this Court with a prayer for direction to the respondents to accord regular promotion to the petitioner to the post of Superintending Engineer with effect from the date of notification i.e. 06.07.2012 or from the date juniors to him were given promotion. Petitioner has further prayed for a direction to the respondents to sanction the benefit of 3rd MACP from the due date i.e. 15.07.2017 on completion of 30 years of service and further to pay the amount of arrears accrued consequent to grant of MACP and regular promotion to the post of Superintending Engineer.

(3.) Bereft of unnecessary details, the petitioner joined the post of Assistant Engineer on 15.07.1987 in the erstwhile State of Bihar, now the State of Jharkhand in Drinking Water and Sanitation Department and rendered his serviced to the full satisfaction of the respondent-authorities. The petitioner was granted 1st ACP w.e.f. 09.08.1999 and thereafter, regular promotion was granted to the petitioner to the post of Executive Engineer w.e.f. 15.11.2000. Thereafter, the petitioner was granted the benefits of 2nd MACP on the due date. The petitioner discharged duties on the said post at different division of Jharkhand and subsequently, elevated to higher grade i.e. to the post of Superintending Engineer Incharge since 10.07.2012. It is the further case of the petitioner that in the year 2015 i.e. on 05.10.2015, a meeting of Departmental Promotion Committee (for short "DPC") was convened, wherein the name of petitioner for promotion to the post of Superintending Engineer was also considered and it was decided to keep it pending with direction to obtain report from Vigilance/ Lokayukta and till then, one post was kept reserved for the petitioner in view of pending allegations pertaining to his posting as Executive Engineer at Jamtara/ Dhanbad Division-1 and Palamau Division. It is the further case of the petitioner that again a meeting of DPC was held on 29.05.2018 to consider and grant the admissible benefit of ACP/ MACP to officers of the Engineering Service Cadre of Drinking Water and Sanitation Department in which name of the petitioner was also considered for 3rd MACP along with many of the Officers in view of different Circular of the State, which have been either over looked or ignored while deciding and making recommendation in favour of the petitioner.