IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.10272 of 1991 (O&M) Date of decision:21.07.2011 Ashok Rampal and others ...Petitioners versus The State of Punjab and another ....Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Mr. Vijay Pal, Advocate, for the petitioners. Mr. N.S.Pawar, Additional Advocate General, Punjab. ---- 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 petitioners seek for a mandamus that they were entitled to count the period of their adhoc service for consideration to the promotion post on completion of the requisite years of service meant for promotion. The petitioners were recruited and held the posts as Tracers or Assistant Draftsmen on adhoc basis and the order of appointment shows that the appointment was purely temporary for 6 months or the availability of regular candidate whichever was earlier. The contention of the petitioners is that they continued in the service without any break and regularized subsequently on various dates as brought forth in Annexure P-2. The petitioners were aggrieved at the time when the Civil Writ Petition No.10272 of 1991 (O&M) - 2 - promotion list was released on 07.06.1991 promoting 35 persons to the higher post and it included persons, who were appointed to the regular post till 15.10.1979. The first among the petitioners was regularized on 01.10.1980. 2. The grievance of the petitioners is that there were no specific rules that governed the issue of seniority of Junior Draftsmen that prescribed that persons, who had completed the requisite number of years of service in regular appointments alone could be considered for promotion. The petitioners rely on the instructions dated 11.12.1981 which had been issued by the Government of Punjab to various offices stating the position as applicable, drawing from pronouncements of some decisions of this Court, that the adhoc service rendered by government employees should also count towards experience in the matter of promotion as well as at the time of initial recruitment provided that there was no specific clause in the relevant service rules providing that such experience should be only on regular appointment. I have already extracted the averment in para 7 of the petition that there existed no service rule that laid down that number of years of experience for promotion should be only on regular appointment. This statement in the petition has not been controverted anywhere by the State by means of any reply. The petitioners are, therefore, entitled to succeed and they shall be treated as having been promoted on the completion of the requisite years of service that has to be calculated from the respective dates when they secured their appointment on adhoc basis and if they had continued without any break in service till they were regularized in the Civil Writ Petition No.10272 of 1991 (O&M) - 3 - respective posts. This shall be worked out to its logical end for consideration of the higher scales of pay that were payable as well as consideration for further promotions so far as seniority is the primary criterion for any further promotion. Any financial benefit and any order that shall become necessary for giving effect to the above, shall be passed by the competent authority among the respondents within a period of 12 weeks from the date of receipt of copy of this order. 3. The writ petition is allowed on the above terms. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE 21.07.2011 sanjeev