CWP NO.20069 of 2009 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. CWP NO.20069 of 2009 DECIDED ON- 24.02.2011 Raghu Nandan ……PETITIONER Versus State of Haryana and others ……RESPONDENTS Coram HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr.Girish Agnihotri, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Vijay Pal, Advocate for the petitioner. Ms. Shruti Jain, AAG, Haryana. Mr. Parveen Gupta, Advocate for Mr. Narender Hooda, Advocate for respondent no.2. RANJIT SINGH, J(Oral) The petitioner prays for his appointment as he was duly selected but has not been appointed. The respondents have not appointed the petitioner despite being selected on the ground which apparently is far fetched and so unacceptable. The respondents had issued an advertisement for 314 posts of Junior Engineer(Electrical) on 15.1.2004. The petitioner applied in response to this advertisement and was interviewed on 13.8.2004. The result was declared on 29.11.2005 and the petitioner was in the list of selected candidates. Thereafter, he was waiting for his appointment letter and approached the respondents on 29.4.2006 for issuance of the same. Even on 4.9.2006, he sent reminder to the respondents for issuing appointment letter, followed by yet another reminder on 12.4.2007. The petitioner then sent a registered letter to the respondents for issuance of appointment letter on 9.10.2008. The petitioner had then received a reply to CWP NO.20069 of 2009 2 contact the Managing Director of HVPNL, Panchkula. Despite that when the petitioner was not appointed, he made an application under Right to Information Act. It is then that he received a letter that appointment letter was issued to him but the same was received back undelivered. The petitioner made certain representations on 26.11.2009 for his appointment and has now approached this Court when the respondents have declined to appoint him. Respondent-Board has filed reply. It is stated that no legal right or fundamental right of the petitioner has been infringed. The averment made in the petition are even denied but fact that the petitioner was selected and an offer of appointment was issued to him is not disputed. It is pointed out that letter of appointment was sent by post to the petitioner through memo dated 10.1.2006. The same was, however, returned back by the postal department as unclaimed. Copy of this has been annexed with the petition as Annexure P2 on record. It is on this basis, stated that the offer of appointment was then made to a candidate in waiting list. Besides other pleadings, the petitioner has made reference to number of circumstances in para 16 of the writ petition to show as to how the stand of the respondents that appointment letter was issued and had been received unclaimed would be unworthy of belief. In reply to this para, it was simply stated that contents of sub paras i to vi of para 16 are wrong and hence vehemently denied. This denial was not considered sufficient by this Court, as can be seen from the order passed on 21.9.2010. The respondents thereafter were given opportunity to file a supplementary affidavit, particularly in response to the averments made in para 16(i) of the writ petition. It would be essential to reproduce para 16 (i) of the writ petition CWP NO.20069 of 2009 3 to know what has been pleaded by the petitioner therein. “i That the only plea of the respondents regarding the appointment letter is that the same was sent to the petitioner but the same was received back undelivered. In response to this plea of the respondents, it is submitted that this plea of the respondents cannot be relied upon in the light of the following facts:- Firstly that the lawful pleadings of the petitioner is duly supported by the well accepted fact on the part of the respondents that the petitioner kept on forwarding the representations over the issue involved herein regularly. In other words, it can be said that the respondents never denied the fact that the petitioner has continuously been sending representations/letters/reminders. It is also important to mention here that the correspondence address mentioned in the initial application and interview letter was the same as address mentioned in the letter under RTI. It is pertinent to mention here that baring the appointment letter allegedly said to be undelivered no other correspondence between the petitioner and the respondents at no point of time has been claimed to be returned undelivered on the same address. Secondly that after submitting his first written representation/request in the year 2006, the petitioner himself as well as his father had contacted personally the office of HVPNL, Panchkula. On contacting the concerned official, the petitioner was told that in fact merit list/formal recommendations from HSSC are still awaited. Again when after waiting for beyond a reasonable period of time, still no communication was received, so the petitioner again personally visited the office of HVPNL. On getting evasive reply from officials, he was then constrained to seek personal hearing/meeting with the Managing Director/HVPNL (the then MD was Sh. P.K.Das, IAS). On a short hearing, that he had given, the petitioner was assured that after verifying the CWP NO.20069 of 2009 4 complete position from office as well as the office of HSSC, a written communication would be sent to the petitioner on his address. Importantly, on the first representation and papers on which the petitioner has handed over the address, as asked for by the officials of HVPNL, the petitioner has given the same address. The specific case of the petitioner is that since the date of appointment till date his address has not changed and remained the same. Again when after some time when no communication was received and on the other hand HSSC had been categoric and their plea that they have already sent their recommendations to HVPNL, the petitioner again visited and sought permission to meet the MD/HVPNL, (Who by then changed and it was Sh.Anurag Aggarwal, IAS). The petitioner kept on meeting MD/HVPNL at different points of time and after being heard personally, the petitioner was assured that the appointment letter will be forwarded to the petitioner as and when the same will be received from the HSSC but the fake assurance was not relied upon by the petitioner because when the petitioner approached the HSSC, the Senior Officers of the Commission mentioned that the petitioner is required to contact the MD/HVPNL as the result had already been declared and any more information (if any), is confidential. In such circumstances, the petitioner again met MD/HVPNL and HSSC frequently but both the respondents did nothing else then shifting the liability on each other and misguided the petitioner which has caused grave loss to the petitioner. But most difficult part is that the MD/HVPNL kept on changing and the petitioner was bound to repeatedly pray for the same before every new officer. From the above, it becomes very evident that the officials of HVPNL in order to favour some body else, had actually never issued any appointment letter and it was only when they had no other option but to give some reply under RTI that they had taken the plea that they had issued appointment letter which remained undelivered. CWP NO.20069 of 2009 5 Thirdly, the respondent no.2 had not cared to respond to any of the representation submitted by the petitioner paying for issuance of appointment letter to the post of Junior Engineer (Electrical) with all consequential benefits from the date of joining of similarly situated selected candidates. ia) That the only plea of the respondents regarding the appointment letter is that the same was sent to the petitioner but the same was received back undelivered. In response to this plea of the respondents it is submitted that this plea of the respondents cannot be relied upon being false and fake and wrong in the light of the fact that the petitioner had always mentioned his residential address in every correspondence sent to the respondents as under:- House No.20, Moti Nagar, Thandi Sarak, Hisar (Haryana). Not only this, petitioner has mentioned same residential address in the application form, which can be seen from the Annexure P2. Not only this, rather if for the arguments purpose it is accepted that when the letter was received undelivered even in such circumstances, the respondents were required to opt/select for special options like re-registration or through the Public Notice etc. But no such option was ever opted by the respondents, which is also the fault on the part of the respondents and not the petitioner. The respondents have filed an additional affidavit which does not make the position clear in any manner. It has been briefly stated that as per the record available, Raghu Nandan never met Sh. P.K.Dass, the then Managing Director HVPNL and thereafter Sh. Anurag Aggarwal or any other official of the office for seeking appointment to the post of Junior Engineer. The brief nature of response is the only thing which can be said to the credit of this affidavit. If detailed averments made by the petitioner CWP NO.20069 of 2009 6 in para 16(i) of the writ petition are noticed, this reply would certainly fall short of required response. In fact the petitioner had narrated all the facts and circumstances for which the stand of the respondents can not be accepted. If the petitioner had really been offered an appointment, which had been received back unclaimed, the respondents could not have remained silent, when various representations were initiated by the petitioner. It is only from an information obtained by the petitioner under the RTI that he has learnt about the correct factual position. The first representation was made by the petitioner in the year 2006. He claims that he alongwith his father contacted the office of HVPNL, Panchkula. As per petitioner, he was apprised that the merit list/formal recommendations were still awaited. The petitioner again visited the office, when he did not receive any communication for a considerable period. The petitioner states to have received evasive replies. He was thus constrained to seek personal hearing and meeting with the Managing Director Sh. P.K.Dass. Nobody ever informed him that he was sent appointment letter which was received back. Rather he was assured by the officials that written communication would be sent to him at his address after verification. The petitioner had given the same address for response which he had given in his application. The appointment letter was stately sent at the same address. Letter could not have come back undelivered. The manner in which the things are kept guarded would show that some mischief was being played. The petitioner claims to have visited the office of the respondent again and sought permission to meet the new Managing Director, whose name he has disclosed as Mr. Anurag Aggarwal. Instead of answering these revealing facts, the stand continues to be that appointment CWP NO.20069 of 2009 7 letter was issued which was received back undelivered. The respondents could be expected to file elaborate response to the specific averments made by the petitioner in para 16(i) of the writ petition. Merely stating that he had not come to the office and met the Officer concerned or that Anurag Aggarwal was never posted in the office of the respondent-Board would be evasive and not suffice. This is the position even after having been given opportunity to the respondents to rebut the stand. To me, it would appear that some one in the office was not favourably inclined to the petitioner or may be interested in the candidate in the waiting list and has so acted in this manner. It may not be fair to make any further observation to say that this was positively done with this intention. There is no need to proceed further in this regard. A person, who is selected would not sit at home in expectation of appointment letter and certainly would make rounds to the office to seek appointment. It is thus fair to believe that the petitioner had paid various visits to the respondents as stated by him. An appointment to the post of Junior Engineer is not easy to get. Denying appointment to a person duly selected amount to taking away valuable rights of the petitioner and cannot be lightly ignored. The respondents are not seen acting in a fair manner. The writ petition is accordingly allowed and the respondents are directed to offer appointment to the petitioner immediately. Let the petitioner appear in the office of respondent-Board on 28.02.2011 at 10 am sharp. The petitioner would be issued an appointment letter as he had been duly selected on merit. The petitioner would also be entitled to costs which have been assessed as Rs.25,000/-. 24.02.2011 ( RANJIT SINGH) mamta JUDGE