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Affairs. issued a Memorandum containing the principle that the, seniority of existing Govt. servants will be determined by the date of their appointment and not from the date of their confirmation. The petitioner asserts that, in accordance with this principle, he was correctly assigned his seniority in the list issued in 1958 after the petitioner'had been confirmed in a permanent post under an order dated 5-5-1956 with effect from 1-7-1955. An extract from the order shows that,. although, the petitioner is a B.A. and shown as appointed on 15-12-1948, and; Narinder Singh, the Inspector next in order of seniority, who was only a Matriculate, appointed subsequently on 7-2-1949, was confirmed retrospectively with effect from 1-7-1953, that is to say, two years earlier than the petitioner. There is, however, a difference in age shown between the two inasmuch as the date of birth of the petitioner is given as 5-4-1925 whereas that of Narinder Singh is shown as 24-7-1911. The petitioner points out that, despite these different dates of confirmation of Inspectors, so that juniors were sometimes confirmed earlier , they retained their seniorities in accordance with the Office Memorandum of 22-6-1949 which made the length of service the only material consideration for purposes of seniority. But, after the Office Memorandum dated 22-12-1959, the rule applied was altered in the Excise Department. New seniority lists were prepared in which seniorities were determined from the dates of confirmation. The result was that Government servants, who ought to have been placed below the petitioner have been, it, is asserted, promoted as Superintendents of Central Excise in the years 1970 to 1971. The petitioner gave a list of twelve juniors who have been so promoted because, according to him, the impugned seniority list of 1-7-1967 illegally put them above the petitioner. The petitioner also complained that, owing to the illegally prepared seniority list, he had been given the grade of a Senior Inspector only on 8-12-1967 and not with effect from 21-3-1961 as it ought to have been done. The petitioner complains of the allegedly illegal confirmation. going as far back as 1955, and illegal seniority lists prepared after 22-11-1959. He has annexed copies of representations dated 6-3-1965, and, 13-8-1971, to which, according to him, no replies were given. The petitioner, therefore, came to this Court seeking relief against what he describes as the impugned list which, according to paragraph 8 of his petition is dated 1-7-1967 (Annexure 7 to his petition), and to allegedly illegal promotion of juniors without setting out the names or dates of promotions of all those so promoted. Presumably, these promoted Inspectors are the 77 persons impleaded as respondents 5 to 81 in the petition before us. Out of these, only twelve, with their places shown as lower than the petitioner's number 204 in the list prepared before 1959. were specifically mentioned in the list of allegedly illegal promotions of' 1970-71. Amrit Lal Berry's petition to this Court was filed on 9-12-1971.

K. N. Kapur and 14 others also give the dates of their appointments as Inspectors ranging from 15-5-1944 in the case of K. N. Kapur to 19-1-1950 in the case of Ravinderlal. The dates of confirmation vary from 1-7-1956, in the case of K. N. Kapur, to 1-12-1962, in the case of S. L. Chopra. The dates of their entry into the senior grade also extend from 29-3-1965, in the case of M. S. Ahluwalia, to 22-11-1971, in the cases of P. L. Sharma and R. L. Kapania. Columns in a list given in the Writ Petition, showing the serial numbers accor ding to the seniority list prior to 22-12-1959 and the subsequent seniority list of 1961, show wide gaps the biggest of which is in the case of K. N. Kapur who came down from his place at No. 32 to No. 252. The seniority list complained of was, however, stated to be, the one prepared in 1961. All the petitioners assert that the seniority lists of 1958 to 1959 were correctly prepared in accordance with the Office Memorandum of 22-6-1949. The whole mischief, according to the petitioners, resulted from misplacing of the names of the petitioners, after the 1959 memorandum, in the seniority list of 1961, which ignored the correct or applicable principle for preparation of the senio rity lists according to the memorandum of 1949. The Writ Petition of K. N. Kapur and 14 others dated 20-10- 1973 was filed on 22-10-1973. In this petition, it is asserted that the office memorandum dated 22-7-1972 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs (Annexure 'D' to the petition) and the Office memoranda, dated 16-3-1973 and 17-3-1973, issued by the Ministry of Finance, are illegal inasmuch as they do not properly give effect to the decision of this Court in Ravi Varma's case (supra). The petitioners asked for the quashing of office memorandum dated 22-7-1972 prepared by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the office memoranda dated 16-3-1973 and 17-3 1973 prepared in the Ministry of Finance. The further relief asked for is that this Court may direct the Collector of Central Excise and the Union of India to implement the decision of this Court given on 4-1-1972 in Ravi Varma's case (supra) so that the office memorandum dated 22-6-1949 and not the office memorandum dated 22-12-1959 may govern the cases of the petitioners. They also claim the award of all benefits consequential to the correct preparation of seniority lists, such. as confirmations, promotions, and payments of amounts which should have been made in the past.

Another grievance of the petitioner Amrit Lal Berry was that he was not given the senior grade of Inspectors with effect from 21-31961 but only from 8-12-1967. He attributes this result merely to his wrong place in the seniority list due to his delayed confirmation. At the same time, he asserts that he crossed the Efficiency Bar on 12-61968. If crossing the Efficiency Bar was a condition precedent to getting the senior grade he was given that grade earlier than 1968. It is not clear, either from the assertions made by the petitioner or in the counter affidavits, whether crossing the Efficiency Bar was a condition precedent to entry into the senior grade or mere length of service was enough for this purpose. Neither the office Memorandum of 1949 nor the petition of Amrit Lal Berry gives conditions of entry into the senior grade. It,-was for the petitioner to satisfy the Court that he was not given the senior grade although he satisfied all the required conditions of it and that others, who were promoted into it, were given un- justifiable preference over him. It is difficult, on the assertions made in the affidavits before us, to see how the petitioner war. denied equality of opportunity in not being given the senior grade in 1961 but only in 1967. Even if we were to assume, as the petitioner would like us to do, that a disregard of seniority determined solely by length of service was the only reason for his failure to get the senior grade in 1961. there is yet another hurdle before the petitioner which was not shown to be present in Ravi Varma's case (supra), and, therefore, not considered or adjudicated upon in that case. There, no objection based on delay in applying to the Court was taken persumably because it could not be taken. But, a number of promotions having taken place between 1959 and the filing of Amrit Lal Berry's petition in 1971, those who were so promoted and had been satisfactorily discharging, for considerable periods before the filing of the petition, their duties in a higher grade would acquire new claims and qualifications, by lapse of time and due discharge of their new functions so that they could not, unless relief had been sought speedily against their allegedly illegal confirmations and promotions, be equitable equated with the petitioner The equality in the equitable balance brought into being by a petitioner's own laches and acquiescence cannot be overlooked when considering a claim to enforce the fundamental right to equal treatment- To treat unequals equally would also violate that right. Although, it may not be possible for the State or its agents to plead an estoppel against a claim to the fundamental right to equal treatment, yet, if a petitioner has been so remiss or negligent as to approach the Court for relief after an inordinate and unexplained delay, be certainly jeopardises his claims as it may become inequitable, with circumstances altered by lapse of time and other facts, to enforce, a fundamental right to the detriment of similar claims of innocent third persons. Learned Counsel for the opposite parties has relied on Rabindra Nath Bose & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (1) where, because rights of persons who had benefited from allegedly illegal seniority rules for a long time would be disturbed, this Court dismissed a petition under Article 32 on the ground of inordinate delay in seeking relief. This Court said there (at p. 712) :-

It will be noticed that Ravi Varma's case (supra) was decided on an appeal from a decision of the High Court on Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution. It was enough, for the purposes of a, petition under Article 226, to show a violation of an applicable rule of seniority laid down in the relevant executive instructions. But, we have writ petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution before as for which violations of fundamental rights under Article 16 (1) of the Constitution have to be satisfactorily shown. Learned Counsel for the petitioner relied upon Union of India v. Vasant Jayaram Karnik & Ors.(1) to contend that violation of a rule relating to seniority in & cadre or grade would be enough to base a claim for "relief on the footing that he is denied equality of opportunity". In that case, the selection for promotion was on the basis of "seniority cum-merit". and it had been found that different standards had been applied in determining seniority of the petitioners before the High Court to compared with the seniority of opposite parties before that Court' Hence, the High Court had quashed the seniority list and it.% decision was upheld by this Court. Application of different and unjustifiable standards for determining seniority did, therefore, establish a clear violation of Article 16 of the Constitution in that case. In the before us, this had not been demonstrated, although it may perhaps have been possible to show this if all the facts could have been so out clearly with instances in which and the manner in which each petitioner had been wrongly superseded by contravening a principle lowing from or implied by Article 16 (1) of the Constitution. However as we have already found that the petitions are also liable to be dismissed on the ground that the equitable rights of a number of other Government servants had come into existence by the laches and acquiescences of the petitioners, we need not proceed further to consider the question whether a violation of the fundamental right (1) A.I.R. 1970 S.C. 2092.