IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.10274 of 1990 (O&M) Date of decision:27.04.2011 Dr. Rajender Parsad, Lecturer, Department of Chemistry Jat College, Rohtak. ....Petitioner versus State of Haryana and others ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Rajbir Sehrawat, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr.Satbir Singh Goripuria, DAG, Haryana. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment ? No. 2. To be referred to the reporters or not ? No. 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the digest ? No. ---- K.Kannan, J. (Oral) 1. The writ petition is at the instance of the Lecturer in the All India Jat Heroes' Memorial College, Rohtak. The writ petitioner seeks for a direction by a writ of mandamus to protect the pay and continuity of service. The admitted case is that the petitioner had been previously working as a Lecturer in Regional Engineering College from 1966 when he resigned from service on 26.10.1978 and appointed on a leave vacancy as a Lecturer in the College on 10.01.1979. The salary, which was last drawn by him in the Regional Engineering College, was protected to him by placing him at a salary starting from Rs.1,060/-. It appears that there fell regular vacancies when a selection process was undertaken. The petitioner had been ranked 2 when three names were Civil Writ Petition No.10274 of 1990 (O&M) - 2 - notified. The persons in merit list at 1 and 3 were appointed on regular vacancies and the petitioner, who was in merit list at 2, was excluded. Instead the College adopted a strange act of terminating his services in the leave vacancy and granted a fresh appointment on 17.10.1980 and started him on the scale of 700-1600. It could be seen that the removal of the petitioner from service and re-appointment on a regular basis was only to deny to the petitioner the pay which he was drawing and to protect against any reduction in salary to what he was drawing when he was regularly appointed. 2. The learned counsel for the State would contend that the appointment in the College to a sanctioned post required sanction from the Government and at the time when he was appointed on a leave vacancy, he was not entitled to any protection of pay which he was drawing in the Regional Engineering College since he had voluntarily retired and had taken a fresh employment in the leave vacancy on 10.01.1979. According to him, the petitioner was not, therefore, entitled to be protected in the scale of pay which he was drawing in his previous employment. 3. To my mind, the matter requires to be addressed differently of whether a teacher, who was appointed in a leave vacancy and who had continued in service till a fresh selection process was made more than a year later could lose the benefit of pay protection that he had obtained by an artificial break and provided with an employment on a scale which was lower than what was he drawing in leave vacancy. It is also significant that he ranked 2 in the merit list and if he had been appointed Civil Writ Petition No.10274 of 1990 (O&M) - 3 - on that day against a regular vacancy, it should have been only meant his continuation from service from the date when he was originally appointed on leave vacancy on 10.01.1979 and he could not have been put on a scale lower than what he was drawing at the time when he was working. The break in service was definitely, therefore, artificial and manipulated to deny to the petitioner a right to insist that he was entitled to be protected in the salary which he was drawing previously in the leave vacancy and in which post, he was made permanent after a selection process. 4. It is stated that the petitioner has since retired from service and the issue does not arise whether he should be treated as in service from the year 1979. The only relief that the petitioner would obtain is consequent to the finding that the salary could not have been reduced at the time of his being made regular, the respondents shall compute the amount that will be payable to the petitioner by taking the petitioner as being entitled to be fitted in a salary starting at Rs.1,060/- on the day when he was made regular and the amount shall be calculated periodically with all the future increments which he would have drawn if his initial salary was Rs.1,060/- and all the arrears shall be paid on such computation within a period of 12 weeks from the date of passing of this order. 5. The writ petition is ordered accordingly. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 27.04.2011 sanjeev