Punjab-Haryana High Court
Sham Lal And Others vs The State Of Haryana And Others. on 4 May, 2009
Author: Ajay Tewari
Bench: Ajay Tewari
C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::1::
IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH
Date of decision : May 04, 2009
1. C.W.P No.2955 of 1985
Sham Lal and others vs The State of Haryana and others.
2. C.W.P No.3098 of 1990
Mahabir Singh and another vs The State of Haryana and others
3. C.W.P No.18093 of 1991
Nand Kumar vs State of Haryana and others.
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CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI *** Present : Mr. R.K.Gupta, Advocate for the petitioners in CWP Nos.2955 of 1985 & 3098 of 1990 Mr. I.D.Singla, Advocate for the petitioner in CWP No.18093 of 1991 Mr. A.K.Gupta, Addl.AG Haryana for the respondents.
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1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment ?
2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ?
3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ?
*** AJAY TEWARI, J This order shall dispose of CWP Nos.2955 of 1985, 3098 of 1990 and 18093 of 1991, as common questions of law and fact are involved therein. For the sake of convenience, facts are being extracted from CWP No.2955 of 1985.
C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::2::
The petitioners seek the issuance of directions to respondents No.1 and 2 to maintain a common seniority list of all Clerks recruited through the Haryana Public Service Commission or the Haryana Subordinate Services Selection Board.
The petitioners and respondents No.3 to 12 were recruited as Clerks in the Haryana Roadways Organization. The main grouse of the petitioners is that without reference to any special qualification, some of the Clerks are posted in the Head Office at Chandigarh and others are posted in various field Depots of the Organization. Learned counsel for the petitioners has contended that in the absence of any statutory rules governing the conditions of service, the petitioners, who were recruited on earlier dates, are senior to the private respondents, who were recruited on later dates. However, the authorities have maintained separate seniority lists of the Clerks posted in the Head Office and the Clerks posted in all the field Depots of the Organization and are providing different channels of promotion to the Clerks in both the lists. The Association of the petitioners has continuously been representing to the authorities to make a joint seniority list of all the Clerks but to no avail. The last representation was sent on 13.5.1984 (Annexure P-1).
Counsel for the respondents has argued that all the Clerks (petitioners) were posted at or near the place of their home District, where posts were lying vacant and the same was mentioned in their appointment order. Secondly, the cadres of the Head Office and Roadways are different. The officials posted in Head office are governed for the purpose of promotion by Punjab Transport State Service Class-III Rules, 1963, whereas there are no service rules notified for the officials in the cadre of the C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::3::
Haryana Roadways and, thus, different seniority lists have been maintained by the authorities. He has further argued that a representation in this regard was made for the first time to the authorities in the year 1993, while appointments of the petitioners were made as far back as in the years 1970 to 1972. Therefore, these writ petitions suffer from delay and laches.
A perusal of the record reveals that the plea of delay is indeed well merited. Even the allegations of the petitioners are as under :-
"5. That without reference to any rules or even executive instructions, the authorities have maintained separate seniority lists of the Clerks posted in the Head Office and the Clerks posted in all the field depots of the Organization and are providing different channels of promotion to the employees included in the two separate lists. The Clerks posted in the Head Office are promoted as Assistants in the grade of Rs.525-1050 and T.S.Is/Junior Auditors in the grade of Rs.525-1050 and posted in the three offices of the Regional Transport Authorities and Tax Barriers, while the Clerks initially posted in the field depots are promoted as Assistants or Junior Auditors in the grade of Rs.525-1050, whenever a post of Assistant or Junior Auditor is available in the field depots only. Thus, whereas the Clerks initially posted in the Head Office get promotion within a very short time, the Clerks initially posted in the field depots not there for a very long time before getting any promotion as Assistant or Junior Auditor."
C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::4::
It is clear from the above that the petitioners had knowledge right from the beginning about this alleged discrimination meted out to them. However, this has been sought to be explained only in the following terms :-
"7. That the Association of the Petitioners has been representing to the authorities against this injustice from time to time, and the last representation was made on 13.5.1984. A copy of this representation is attached herewith as Annexure P-1."
In Rabindra Nath Bose v. Union of India , 1970 AIR (SC) 470, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as follows :-
"34. The learned counsel for the petitioners strongly urges that the decision of this Court in Trilokchand and Motichand's case (supra) needs review. But after carefully considering the matter, we are of the view that no relief should be given to petitioners who without any reasonable explanation, approach this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution after inordinate delay. The highest Court in this land has been given Original Jurisdiction to entertain petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution. It could not have been the intention that this Court would go into stale demands after a lapse of years. It is said that Article 32 is itself a guaranteed right. So it is, but it does not follow from this that it was the intention of the Constitution makers that this Court should discard all principles and grant relief in petitions C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::5::
filed after inordinate delay."
Subsequently, in B.S.Bajwa v. State of Punjab, 1999 AIR (SC) 1510, the Hon'ble Supreme Court held as follows :-
"6. Having heard both sides we are satisfied that the writ petition was wrongly entertained and allowed by the Single Judge and, therefore, the judgments of the Single Judge and the Division Bench have both to be set aside. The undisputed facts appearing from the record are alone sufficient to dismiss the writ petition on the ground of laches because the grievance was made by B.S.Bajwa and B.D.Gupta only in 1984 which was long after they had entered the department in 1971-72. During this entire period of more than a decade they were all along treated as junior to the other aforesaid persons and the rights inter se had crystallised which ought not to have been re-opened after the lapse of such a long period. At every stage the others were promoted before B.S.Bajwa and B.D.Gupta and this position was known to B.S.Bajwa and B.D.Gupta right from the beginning as found by the Division Bench itself. It is well settled that in service matters the question of seniority should not be re-opened in such situations after the lapse of a reasonable period because that results in disturbing the settled position which is not justifiable. There was inordinate delay in the present case for making such a grievance. This alone was sufficient to decline C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::6::
interference under Article 226 and to reject the writ petition."
Learned counsel for the petitioners has relied upon the case in V.A.Raman v. K.V.John and others, AIR 1998 SC 2582 and particularly on para 8 thereof which is in the following effect :-
"8. Rule 27(c) requires the seniority to be determined by the date of the first effective advice made for his appointment by the Public Service Commission and when two or more persons are included in such effective advice, their seniority is to be fixed according to the order in which their names are arranged in the advice list. The Note clarifies the date of effective advice as being the date of the letter of Commission on the basis of which the candidate was appointed. The letter, in the present case, of 4.6.1971 cannot be construed as the letter giving effective advice when the letter in terms states that the advice is only provisional and the inter se seniority of these candidates vis.a.vis the open market candidates will be fixed after finalisation of the ranking list of open market candidates and after advice of 40% vacancies allotted to them. The effective advice in this context can only be by the letter of 18.1.1973 which is the final and effective advice. It also contains the final advice list as per Rule 27(c). The seniority, therefore, has to be determined with reference to the advice list forwarded by the Kerala Public Service Commission by its letter of C.W.P No.2955 of 1985 ::7::
18.1.1973."
In my opinion, the judgment in V.A.Raman's case (supra) relates only a situation where seniority of persons from open market and departmental candidates is to be determined. Further, a perusal of the facts of the above case reveals that the writ petition was filed before the High Court with promptitude and not after so many years' delay.
Consequently, finding no merit in this writ petition, the same is hereby dismissed with no order as to costs.
( AJAY TEWARI ) May 04, 2009. JUDGE `kk'