Supreme Court - Daily Orders
Sukhbir Singh vs U.O.I on 24 August, 2015
Bench: A.K. Sikri, Rohinton Fali Nariman
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
CIVIL APPEAL NO. 6591 OF 2015
(Arising out of SLP (C) No. 25696 of 2013)
SUKHBIR SINGH & ORS ... Appellants
VERSUS
U.O.I & ORS ... Respondents
WITH
CIVIL APPEAL NOS. 6592-6593 OF 2015
(Arising out of SLP(C) No. 23295-23296 of 2013)
O R D E R
Leave granted.
Nobody appears on behalf of the private respondents either on the last date of hearing or even today.
With the consent of the parties, the matters are taken up for final hearing at this stage itself.
The facts of the matters are not in dispute and it is not even necessary to record these facts in detail. It is sufficient to point out that the appellants were recruited as Junior Engineers and thereafter have been promoted as Assistant Engineers in the Central Public Works Department (hereinafter referred to as 'CPWD' for short). On the other hand, private respondents were working as Junior Engineers in the All India Radio. They were declared surplus in their Department and therefore, they also came to be deployed in Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Gulshan Kumar Arora Date: 2015.09.04 CPWD with the condition that no benefit of par service shall 10:27:25 IST Reason: accrue to them.
C.A. No. 6591/2015 etc. 1 Promotion from the post of Junior Engineer is to the post of Assistant Engineer. The eligibility condition for consideration for the post of Assistant Engineer is four years of service as Junior Engineer. The private respondents have, after their absorption in CPWD, completed four years of service as Junior Engineers in CPWD as well. Therefore, it cannot be disputed that they have become entitled to appear in the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination for promotion to the post of Assistant Engineer. In fact, the High Court has given the aforesaid relief to the private respondents by holding that they are now eligible to appear in the Limited Departmental Competitive Examination for promotion to the post of Assistant Engineer. There is no quarrel up to this. However, in paragraph 11 of the impugned judgment, the High Court has given the following directions:-
“11. It cannot be disputed that if fresh applications are invited for LDCE definitely the AIR re-deployed staff also would be qualified as they would also have the necessary qualification for writing the examination in CPWD even without the advantage of relaxing the qualification. When a fresh application is invited for a certain number of posts, it is not open for the respondents to contend that such posts had fell vacant on an earlier occasion. Such an interpretation given will again prevent the AIR redeployed staff in writing the LDCE though they are qualified as on the date of notification. Vacancies that had arisen on an earlier occasion, if not filled up, can only be treated as vacancies which is required to be filled up, as per the notification being published. In such circumstances, we do not think that there is any necessity to revise the impugned orders on merits as by lapse of time the persons who had been re-deployed from AIR had already qualified to write the competitive examination and the department shall be free to call for fresh application to fill up the existing post and it is not open for the respondents to insist that the vacancy position has to C.A. No. 6591/2015 etc. 2 be taken into consideration from the respective years.
In the result, without modifying the orders of the Tribunal, we permit the department to invite fresh applications for filling up the vacant post. The Writ Petitions are disposed of as above.” The grievance of the appellants is limited. It is submitted that there have been vacancies which existed even prior to the completion of four years service by the private respondents and therefore, these respondents cannot be considered against those vacancies of previous years.
To this extent, the grievance of the appellants is justified. We, accordingly, modify the directions contained in paragraph 11 of the impugned judgment and clarify that the private respondents shall be entitled to compete for the post of Assistant Engineer through Limited Departmental Competitive Examination which occurred after the completion of four years of service by them.
The appeals are allowed to the aforesaid extent.
.........................., J.
[ A.K. SIKRI ] .........................., J.
[ ROHINTON FALI NARIMAN ] New Delhi;
August 24, 2015.C.A. No. 6591/2015 etc. 3
ITEM NO.4 COURT NO.14 SECTION XIA
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. 25696/2013 (Arising out of impugned final judgment and order dated 22/03/2013 in WPC No. 33471/2009 passed by the High Court Of Kerala At Ernakulam) SUKHBIR SINGH & ORS Petitioner(s) VERSUS U.O.I & ORS Respondent(s) (With interim relief and office report) WITH SLP(C) No. 23295-23296/2013 (With Interim Relief and Office Report) Date : 24/08/2015 These matters were called on for hearing today.
CORAM :
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. SIKRI HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ROHINTON FALI NARIMAN For Petitioner(s) Mr. Ramesh Babu M. R., Adv.
For Respondent(s) Mr. Arvind Kumar Gupta, Adv.
Ms. Pinky Anand, ASG.
Ms. Usha Reddy, Adv.
Ms. Aishwarya Bhati, Adv. Ms. Ranjana Narayan, Adv. Ms. Sushma Suri,Adv.
UPON hearing the counsel the Court made the following O R D E R Leave granted.
The appeals are allowed to the extent indicated in the signed order.
(Nidhi Ahuja) (Renu Diwan)
COURT MASTER COURT MASTER
[Signed order is placed on the file.] C.A. No. 6591/2015 etc. 4