C.W.P No. 20390 of 2008 ::1:: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P No. 20390 of 2008 Date of decision : January 20, 2009 Rajinder Kumar, ...... Petitioner (s) v. Haryana Urban Development Authority, & another ...... Respondent(s) *** CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI *** Present : Mr. K.L.Dhingra, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Preeti Khanna, Advocate for the respondents. *** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? *** AJAY TEWARI, J The petitioner is working as a Peon in the office of the respondents since 28.8.1989. As per the Haryana Urban Development Authority Service Regulation, 1989, 20% posts of Clerks were to be filled up by promotion from amongst Class-III and IV employees. A further condition for promotion is that the employee should have completed five years regular service and should qualify type test. Originally the policy was that a newly promoted employee would get a period of one year to clear the type test. By a subsequent notification dated 28.4.2008, the nomenclature C.W.P No. 20390 of 2008 ::2:: of the post of Clerk was changed to Office Associate and it was further declared that for promotion a person would have to be a Matriculate with knowledge of Hindi/Sanskrit upto Matriculation. Further, the condition regarding grant of one year for clearing of type test was deleted. It is the case of the petitioner that under the above amendment, passing of typing test has been made compulsory before promotion and that this is an amendment in the qualifications. Counsel for the petitioner relies upon a judgment of this Court reported as Ramesh Kumar and another vs State of Punjab and another, 2001(2) RSJ 56, and a judgment of the Hon'ble Supreme Court reported as Y.V.Rangaiah and others vs J.Sreenivasa Rao and others, (1983)3 SCC 284 to contend that the changed qualifications could not apply to posts existing before the said amendment. The petitioner had earlier filed CWP No.18658 of 2008 before this Court which was disposed of vide order dated 31.10.2008 with a direction to respondent No.1 to take a final decision on his representation within a period of two weeks. Vide order dated 14.11.2008, respondent No.1 has decided the representation of the petitioner by mentioning as follows :- “........... It would be befitting to mention here that as per the un-amended regulations, a number of employees got promoted to the posts of Clerk and they did not bother to pass the type test till they retired. Even, at present there are 93 such employees who have not passed the type-test. This not only hampered the working of the department but also resulted in a heavy burden on the public money C.W.P No. 20390 of 2008 ::3:: by retaining inefficient employees.....” In my opinion, the argument of counsel for the petitioner is fallacious. It is not disputed that the qualification of knowledge of typing has not been changed. It is only the process of testing the said knowledge which has been changed. Even the petitioner in his representation has mentioned that he knows typing. Thus, it cannot be held that the judgments cited by counsel for the petitioner are applicable to the present case because in those cases it was decided that a person could not be declared ineligible with retrospective effect and that is why it was held that posts which existed before the amendment of qualifications would have to be filled up as per the un-amended qualifications. In the present case, as noticed above, the qualifications have not been changed and that, at best, only modalities for testing the said qualifications have been changed. Consequently, finding no merit in this writ petition, the same is dismissed with, however, no order as to costs. ( AJAY TEWARI ) January 20, 2009. JUDGE `kk'