CWP No. 2734, 3979 and 9613 of 1988 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA, CHANDIGARH CWP No. 2734 of 1988 Date of decision April 5 , 2010 R. C. Nanda and others ....... Petitioner Versus Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala through its Secretary,PSEB,Patiala and others ........ Respondents CWP No. 3979 of 1988 Joginder Singh and others ....... Petitioner Versus Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala through its Secretary and others ........ Respondents CWP No. 9613 of 1988 Balwant Rai Gupta and others ....... Petitioner Versus Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala through its Secretary ,PSEB Patiala and others ........ Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN Present:- Mr. Vivek Sharma, Advocate for Mr. D. S. for the petitioner in CWP No.3979 of 1988 None for the petitioners in CWP No.2734 and 9613 of 1988 None for the respondents. **** K. Kannan, J (oral). CWP No. 2734, 3979 and 9613 of 1988 2 1. All the three writ petitions address the same issue of the validity of rule in the Electricity Board that provided for a quota for diploma holders and non-diploma holders for promotion to junior engineer's post from the post of Test Inspector. The petitioner had claimed that the judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Ravinder Kumar Sharma (1986) 4 SCC 617 must be followed. At the time of admission this Court had directed the case to be taken up after the disposal of the case in The Punjab State Electricity Board, Patiala and another Vs. Ashok Kumar Sehgal and others in LPA No.402 of 1988. It appears that the judgment had been pronounced in the year 1989 but this case has come up for hearing only now. 2. The issue regarding the validity of fixation of quota with the criterion of educational qualification was dealt with by a Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in State of J&K Vs. Tirlok Nath reported in (1974) 1 SCC 19. This decision was cited by the three member Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Murugesan Vs. State of Tamil Nadu reproted in 1993 2 SCC 340 that expressly overruled its earlier decision in PSEB Vs. Ravinder Kumar Sharma reported in 1986 4 SCC 617. The three member Bench in Murugesan's case (supra) held that after the decision of the Constitution Bench the issue of providing for a quota to a higher post on the basis of higher educational qualification could not be said to be arbitrary and therefore held that the decision in Ravinder Kumar Sharma's case (supra) which did not refer to the Constitution Bench decision was not correctly decided. 3. All the above decisions had been dealt with in a more recent judgment in Kuldeep Kumar Gupta Vs. HPSEB (2001) 1 SCC 475 that held that a quota between diploma holders and non-diploma holders for a higher post was perfectly tenable and rejected the plea that it CWP No. 2734, 3979 and 9613 of 1988 3 was arbitrary and contrary to rule of reservation under the constitutional scheme. 4. In view of the law cited above,the petitioner's claim shall stand rejected. All the writ petitions are dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE April 5, 2010 archana