IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 Date of decision:15.03.2010 Jagroop Singh ....Petitioner versus State of Punjab and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE K. KANNAN ---- Present: Ms. Jagdeep Bains, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Manohar Lall, Additional Advocate General, Punjab. ---- 1. Whether reporters of local papers 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 ? ---- K.Kannan, J. 1. The petitioner has a grievance against the decision of the Managing Director placing respondents 6 to 33 higher in the order of seniority by his proceedings dated 12.08.1977. The case has seen the usual tiers through an appeal to the Registrar in a petition filed under Section 69 of the Punjab Cooperative Societies Act, 1961 who dismissed the claim of the petitioner and still further revision filed before the Commissioner. The seniority list approved and finalized by the Managing Director was maintained and the writ petition came to be filed impugning all the three orders passed in their quasi judicial hierarchies. The case has stood on for 22 years before it could reach for final disposal Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 - 2 - and in the meanwhile the petitioner has retired from service. The case has relevance not to obtain a seniority and officiating as such senior to the other private respondents but it has relevance only for notional fixation of higher scale if the seniority position could have earned for the petitioner a promotion which in turn shall have a bearing on the terminal benefits. 2. The learned counsel Ms. Bains arguing for the petitioner refers to the resolution passed by the Staff Sub Committee of the Bank on 21.02.1970 when the petitioner had been shown as senior to many of the private respondents while many others were not even in the zone of reckoning. Referring to the tentative seniority list which was issued on 21.04.1971 for the post of Senior Accountant to which post, the petitioner had been promoted by the resolution of the Staff Committee on 21.02.1970, the learned counsel would contend that the petitioner had been shown in the serial No.20 while many of the private respondents had been shown as juniors to him. The seniority list had been ultimately approved on 31.05.1977 which relegated the petitioner from serial No.20 to 29 when all the private respondents had been shown as seniors above him. In the final list, the petitioner has been shown to have assumed his charge as a Senior Accountant only on 28.10.1972, when he had actually been promoted and was holding the post even since 21.02.1970. The injustice perpetrated by a wrong fixation of assumed date has been followed blindly without adverting to the actual situation that the assumption of charge as Senior Accountant was through proper resolution referred to above. Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 - 3 - 3. The contention in reply to the petitioner's grievance on behalf of the respondents is that Rule 1.10(a) of the Punjab State Cooperative Financing Institution Service (Common Cadre) Rules,1970- 71 provided that the integration of the existing employees of the Apex Bank of the Central Cooperative Bank could be done by the Administrative Committee only after satisfying the suitability of the employees for the posts and such appointment was required to be approved by the competent authority. The post against which the petitioner had been promoted had not been approved by the Registrar, when there existed no vacancy in the post and, therefore, the resolution of the Staff Sub Committee promoting the petitioner from Junior Accountant to Senior Accountant was not valid and seniority could not be fixed with reference to his alleged promotion on 21.02.1970. 4. The issue will have to be therefore considered in the light of whether the promotion purported to have been issued to the petitioner by resolution on 21.02.1970 could be seen as valid with reference to the Common Cadre Rules. Clause 1.10(a) relating to the integration of employees clearly provides for the requirement of approval of the competent authority. The said provision reads as follows:- “ Integration of employees: 1.10 (a) The integration of existing employees of the Apex Bank and Central Cooperative Banks in the categories of posts given in Annexure 1 shall be done by the Administrative Committee after satisfying the suitability of employees for the posts. The Administrative Committee will be guided, inter alia, mainly by the following factors for conducting the screening of an employee for this purpose: (i) That his appointment including promotion to the post held by him before being taken in Common Cadre was approved by the competent authority. ....” Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 - 4 - The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner points out that an integration order had been issued by the Managing Director on 11.10.1976 and the names of 4 persons that included the petitioner also was stated to have been integrated in the Common Cadre after screening with reference to the service record. The proceedings dated 11.10.1976 also states that the seniority of all the 4 persons including the petitioner would be fixed under Rule 1.10(b) of the Common Cadre Rules in the category of posts against which the appointments were approved by the competent authority as Junior Accountant. Rule 1.10(b) reads as follows:- “1.10(b) The seniority of employees who are taken on Common Cadre under the provisions of these Rules shall be determined in a particular category on the basis of his qualified length of service on the post held at the time of enforcement of these rules. Provided that the employees working in the higher grades just before the enforcement of these rules shall be deemed to be senior to the employees working in lower grade in the same category. The qualified length of service shall include the continuous officiating period of service on the posts in the category.” The grievance of the petitioner is the proceedings of the Managing Director in the integration order referred to another person Ranjit Singh, who had been shown in serial No.19 in the tentative seniority list; Joginder Singh and Yash Pal Bhalla had also been promoted and integrated in the Common Cadre by the very same proceedings of the Managing Director and had been shown in the tentative seniority list in serial Nos.21 and 22. It could however be noticed that in respect of all the three persons, the seniority had not been fixed with reference to the Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 - 5 - integration order issued by the Managing Director. The seniority for all the three other persons also had been fixed only with reference to the date when the competent authority had approved the promotions namely on 28.10.1972. 5. There is no proof other than the order dated 11.10.1976 that the promotion of the petitioner had been approved. The resolution dated 21.02.1970 does not refer to any approval from the competent authority. There has been consistency in approach and no form of discrimination had been made. Again if the rules provides for a particular mode of integration and promotion, by the only fact that through a resolution, promotion had been wrongly afforded to the post cannot secure to the petitioner a seniority on the basis of such wrong order. 6. The petitioner had attempted to claim the benefit of seniority w.e.f. 21.02.1970 at par with three other persons namely, Kulwant Rai Gupta, Wazir Singh and Kuldip Singh, who had been shown as seniors to the petitioner and who assumed the promotion post on the same day only on 21.02.1970. The above three persons were admittedly seniors to the petitioner and shown as such seniors in serial No.15 to 17. By the only fact that the petitioner was also appointed on the same day, the petitioner cannot claim parity for it is nobody's case that the promotion was not approved by the competent authority at that time. On the other hand, the contention is that all the above three occupied the vacant posts that existed at that time while the petitioner was promoted even in the absence of a vacant post. The approval of the competent authority had, therefore, not been given and when it was given in the year 1972, it was Civil Writ Petition No.9720 of 1988 - 6 - the subsequent date which could become relevant for consideration of the seniority. The integration order issued by the Managing Director on 11.10.1976 including the petitioner came about subsequently, and it cannot be assumed that the petitioner's promotion to Senior Accountant had been approved to be effective from 21.02.1970 itself. 7. The issue has been correctly considered by all the authorities below and a challenge in the writ petition cannot therefore succeed. The writ petition is consequently dismissed. (K.KANNAN) JUDGE 15.03.2010 sanjeev