C.W.P. No.10494 of 1989 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT FOR THE STATES OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P. No.10494 of 1989 Date of Decision:01.04.2010 Vishno Dass Shukla, Junior Engineer-I, M.E. Sub Division, Punjab State Electricity Board, Amritsar ........Petitioner Versus The Punjab State Electricity Board through its Secretary, Patiala and another ....Respondents Present: Mr. Vivek Sharma, Advocate for Mr. D.S. Patwalia, Advocate for the petitioner. None for the respondents. CORAM:HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN 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 petitioner seeks for assigning to him a deemed date of promotion to the past as Junior Engineer-I from the date when persons, who had been shown as Juniors to him were promoted to the cadre of Junior Engineer-I. The basis of the contention is that although he was promoted only on 06.12.1984 when he acquired the necessary qualification of five years experience with diploma, persons who had obtained diploma and who had qualified with more than five years earlier. The said persons were, however, juniors to him in the feeder cadre and hence, though they had been promoted C.W.P. No.10494 of 1989 -2- earlier, they had been assigned as juniors in the promotion post. The contention of the petitioner is that the person namely Bakshish Singh had obtained to the promotion post on 08.03.1976 and that date shall be shown as his deemed date of promotion. 2. The response to this contention is that the promotion had been granted to the petitioner only on the date when he obtained the requisite qualification namely when he had passed the diploma in the year 1984 and the fact that he had been shown as a senior to Bakshish Singh cannot give to him a right to be treated as having been promoted from a date when he actually did not even have the qualification. Still the request of petitioner stems from his claim to obtain a higher scale relating to the promotion post, with chances of further promotion to still a higher post. This argument contains an inherent fallacy, for, if this contention were to be accepted, it would require to be re-positioning his deemed date at every stage. It could be illustrated from examining a situation that from the post of Junior Engineer-I, the further promotion to the post of Assistant Engineer required seven years experience. While a person like Bakshish Singh, who was in Sr. No.14 in the seniority list in the Junior Engineers cadre, he would have been considered as eligible for promotion after the completion of seven years and the petitioner could have been considered for promotion only after a similar period of seven years, which would fall after 06.12.1991. But if a deemed date were to be given and if Bakshish Singh had been promoted earlier to the still higher post, the petitioner will catch up and seek for a still deemed date of the date when Bakshish Singh was C.W.P. No.10494 of 1989 -3- promoted as the Assistant Engineer. A deemed date of promotion, which the petitioner asks for will have a cascading effect of re- ascertaining seniority at every stage of promotion. A deemed date cannot avail to a person when he did not even have the necessary qualification at that time. The matter has to be tested from a singular aspect of whether on the deemed date, he had the necessary qualification for being considered. That qualification as a diploma holder if he did not possess on the date when he seeks for a deemed consideration, it would not avail to him to obtain such a benefit. 3. The petitioner points out to an office order issued on 12.05.1987, in terms of the interim order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in a case SLP Nos.206-10 of 1988, in which it had been decided that as regards the officials promoted according to the rule or quota after 1980 as Junior Engineer-I, the seniority should be re-scheduled in terms of their seniority position in the lower cadre from which they were promoted. This office order is explained in the written statement as obtaining only in case of Junior Engineers' promotion from the Junior Engineer-II on the electrical side and this office order was not applicable to the Junior Engineers, who are promoted to Test Inspectors post from the mechanical engineering side. This contention of the Electricity Board is sought to be faulted by the learned counsel appearing for the petitioner by pointing out that the deemed date had been provided even to persons, who had been promoted to the post of JE-I from the Test Inspector post as evident from the officer order issued on 21.11.1986 referring further C.W.P. No.10494 of 1989 -4- to instances of three persons, Subhash Khurana, Kamaljit Singh and Nirmal Singh to assign to them a deemed date of promotion from a date when persons still juniors to them had been promoted. This is again explained by the Electricity Board by stating that the three persons had passed diploma and acquired eligibility and promoted as Junior Engineer-I but there were some errors in the seniority position. The deemed date had been assigned to them when they had the eligibility namely they had passed their diploma. That precisely, in my view, makes a difference, for, in this case, the petitioner cannot claim assignment to a deemed date of promotion when he was not even eligible for such consideration, he having acquired his diploma only in the year 1984. 4. The petitioner's claim, therefore, fails and it is dismissed. (K. KANNAN) JUDGE April 01, 2010 Pankaj*