Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Budh Ram vs State Of Haryana . on 2 February, 2016
Bench: Fakkir Mohamed Ibrahim Kalifulla, C. Nagappan
ITEM NO.5 COURT NO.6 SECTION IVB
S U P R E M E C O U R T O F I N D I A
RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS
Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (C) No(s). 16962/2011
(Arising out of impugned judgment and order dated 30/03/2011 in
LPA No. 191/2011 passed by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at
Chandigarh)
BUDH RAM & ORS. Petitioner(s)
VERSUS
STATE OF HARYANA & ORS. Respondent(s)
(with interim relief and office report)
Date : 02/02/2016 This petition was called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE FAKKIR MOHAMED IBRAHIM KALIFULLA
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE C. NAGAPPAN
For Petitioner(s) Mr. T.S. Doabia,Sr.Adv.
Mr. Shailendra Sharma,Adv.
Mr. Ravinder Agarwal,AOR
For Respondent(s) Mr. Arun Bhardwaj,AAG
Ms. Nupur Choudhary,Adv.
Mr. Jai Wadhwa,Adv.
Mr. Ronak Karanpuria,Adv.
Mr. Vishwapal Singh,Adv.
Mr. Kamal Mohan Gupta,AOR
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following
O R D E R
The impugned judgment by which the Division Bench while upholding the order of learned Single Judge in regard to the proposed recovery of over-payment made to the petitioners, in the same breath confirmed the order of another learned Single Judge that under Rule 5 of Haryana Government Employees (Assured Career Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Renuka Sadana Progression) Rules, 1998, the ad hoc service cannot be equated to Date: 2016.02.03 16:24:43 IST Reason: signed by narendra prasad, c.m. regular service for the purpose of grant of respective ACPs on 1 completion of 8-18 years of service and consequently the re-fixation made by the State Government to the petitioners after noticing the error was held to be justified. In fact this very issue was subject matter of consideration in this Court in the judgment now reported in (2013) 16 SCC 677 in State of Haryana and others v. Sita Ram and others. Paragraphs 15 and 24 are relevant for our purpose, which reads as under:-
“15. We may now advert to the judgment in State of Haryana v. Haryana Veterinary and AHTS Assn. The facts of that case were that one Rakesh Kumar Singla, who joined service as Assistant Engineer on ad hoc basis on 4.1.1980, was appointed on regular basis with effect from 29.8.1982 after selection by the Public Service Commission. He represented to the Government for grant of selection grade on completion of 12 years' service commencing from 4.1.1980. Having failed to convince the competent authority to accept his plea, Rakesh Kumar Singla filed a writ petition in the High Court. The Division Bench, which heard the matter was of the view that the service rendered by the appellant on the basis of an ad hoc appointment cannot be counted as part of regular service. However, keeping in view an earlier judgment in which a contrary view was expressed, the Division Bench made a reference to a three-Judge Bench. By a majority judgment, the larger Bench held that the service rendered by an employee on the basis of ad hoc appointment must be clubbed with his regular service for the purpose of grant of selection grade in terms of the policy framed by the State Government. This Court reversed the judgment of the majority and observed: (SCC P9, para 7) “7......Coming to the Circular dated
2.6.1989, issued by the Financial Commissioner and Secretary to the Government of Haryana, Finance Department, it appears that the aforesaid Circular had been issued for removal of anomalies in the pay scale of Doctors, Deputy Superintendents and Engineers, and so far as engineers are concerned, which are in Class 1 and Class II, it was unequivocally 2 indicated that the revised pay scale of Rs.3,000 to Rs.4,500 can be given alter completion of 5 years of regular service and Rs.4,100 to Rs.5,300 after completion of 12 years of regular service. The said Financial Commissioner had issued yet another Circular dated 16.05.1990, in view of certain demands made by officers of different departments. The aforesaid Circular was issued after re-consideration by the Government modifying to some extent the earlier Circular of 2.06.1989, and even in this Circular it was categorically indicated that so far as Engineers are concerned, they would get Rs.3,000 to Rs.4,500 after 5 years of regular and satisfactory service and Selection Grade in the scale of pay of Rs.4,100 to Rs.5,300, which is limited to the extent of 20% of the cadre post should be given after 12 years of regular and satisfactory service. The aforesaid two Circulars are unambiguous and unequivocally indicate that a government servant would be entitled to the higher scale indicated therein only on completion of 5 years or 12 years of regular service and further the number of persons to be entitled to get the selection grade is limited to 20% of the cadre post This being the position, we fail to understand how services rendered by Rakesh Kumar from 1980 to 1982, which was purely on ad hoc basis, and was not in accordance with the statutory rules can be taken into account for computation of the period of 12 years indicated in the Circular. The majority judgment of the High Court committed serious error by equating expression 'regular service' with 'continuous service'. In our considered opinion under the terms and conditions of the Circulars dated 2.6.1989 and 16.5.1990, the respondent Rakesh Kumar would be entitled for being considered to have the Selection Grade on completion of 12 years from 29.1.1982 on which date he was duly appointed against a temporary post of 3 Assistant Engineer on being selected by the Public Service Commission and not from any earlier point of time.
The conclusion of the majority judgment in favour of Rakesh Kumar, therefore, cannot be sustained.” “24. We reiterate that even though Ravinder Kumar case was delinked from the batch of matters decided vide judgment in State of Haryana v. Haryana Veterinary and AHTS Assn. and was independently decided, the same cannot be relied upon for grant of benefit of ACP scales under the 1998 Rules or time-bound promotional scales or additional increments by counting work charge or ad hoc service where the rules/scheme provide that the employee must have rendered regular service for a particular period.” In the light of the said dictum of this Court, the said judgment covers the issue concerned in this special leave petition. Following the same, the special leave petition stands dismissed. It is open for the Respondent No.1/State to make effective changes in the pay and pension without effecting any recovery of any over-payment made from the petitioners.
(NARENDRA PRASAD) (SHARDA KAPOOR)
COURT MASTER COURT MASTER
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