IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA MJC No 9 of 2008 Sunil Kumar, son of Jag Mohan Prasad Azad, resident of Mohalla – Dularganj, P O – Gaya, P S – Kotwali, District – Gaya - Petitioner Versus 1 The State of Bihar 2 Sri Dhaneshwar Prasad Choudhary, Managing Director, District Rural Development Agency, Gaya 3 Sri Raj Kumar Singh, Secretary –cum- Commissioner, Road Construction Department, Government of Bihar, Nirman Bhawan, Patna 4 Sri A K Sinha, Chief Secretary –cum- Commissioner, Water Resources Department (Irrigation Department), Government of Bihar, Patna 5 Sri Uma Shankar Singh, Engineer-in-Chief, Water Resources Department (Irrigation Department), Government of Bihar, Patna 6 Sri Jitendra Srivastava, D M, Gaya 7 Dr Deepak Prasad, Secretary –cum- Commissioner, Rural Works Department, Government of Bihar, Patna 8 Sri Ram Dhyan Ram, Engineer-in-Chief, Rural Works Department, Government of Bihar, Patna 9 Sri Raj Kumar Singh, Secretary, Road Construction Department, Government of Bihar 10 Sri Shiv Dharshan Ram, Engineer-in-Chief, Road Construction Department, Government of Bihar, Patna 11 Bihar Public Service Commission, Patna through its Secretary 12 The Staff Selection Commission, Veterinary College, Patna through its Secretary - Respondents *** For the petitioner : M/s Rajiv Kumar Verma, Sr Advocate With M/s Rajneesh, Sanjiv Jaiswal, Meeta Sinha, Advocates For the S t a t e : Mr AAG 3 For the B P S C : Mr Kumar Brajendra Nath, Advocate For the S S C : Mr Vipin Kumar, Advocate *** 11 13.04.2010 The present contempt application has been filed by 2 the petitioner being aggrieved by non-implementation of the Division Bench judgment in LPA No 441 of 1998 which was allowed on 18.05.2007. This contempt application has been pending for over two years seeking implementation of the relief granted in the aforesaid Letters Patent Appeal. The earlier stand of Bihar Public Service Commission, in this contempt application, was that because of constitution of Staff Selection Commission, it was not competent to grant approval whereas the stand of the Staff Selection Commission was that being an old matter, it was BPSC that was competent to grant approval. After two years of this seesaw battle now the bald stand of the State, for the first time, is that the initial appointment of petitioner appeared to be not regular and, hence, could not be regularized. 2 Like many others, on 20th October 1985, the petitioner was engaged on daily wage basis as Junior Engineer by the District Development Officer under the scheme known as National Rural Development Programme Scheme. On 21st December 1985, Government decided not to make any further appointment of Junior Engineers on daily wages but at the same time decided not to disengage any such Junior Engineer for the time being. By the said decision, Government decided to take steps to regularize all such Junior Engineers appointed on daily wage basis whose appointments were made upto 19th December 1985 and directed the appropriate authority to prepare a list of such daily wage Junior Engineers and send it to the Government 3 for regularization. 3 Apparently, even though petitioner was one such daily wages Junior Engineer, his name was left out to be sent for regularization alongwith other such Junior Engineers. On 20th June 1988, Deputy Development Commissioner, Gaya sent the name of the petitioner for regularization in pursuant to the Government policy decision of 21st December, 1985 but instead of being regularized, by order dated 18th September 1989, the petitioner was disengaged even though in 1987, the State Cabinet, in furtherance to the Government decision of December 1985, decided that pending recommendation from BPSC, such Junior Engineers be appointed on ad hoc basis for six months awaiting recommendation from the BPSC. The conscious decision of the State Government was not to disengage such daily wage Junior Engineers but to regularize them immediately. Unfortunately, petitioner was left out. Similarly situated persons were taken in regular establishment and are continued till date but petitioner is now being told that he cannot be regularized notwithstanding the judgment of this Court. 4 Being aggrieved by the decision of the Government and by the act of the Government in disengaging him, petitioner filed writ petition (CWJC No 3843 of 1995) which was dismissed on 06.03.1998 by learned Single Judge holding that the engagement of petitioner as daily wage Junior Engineer was in violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and 4 dismissed the writ petition wherefrom the Letters Patent Appeal was preferred. 5 In the Letters Patent Appeal, records being examined, it was found that there was no foundation laid by the State to enable the learned Single Judge to come to the finding that the appointment of petitioner was not made following rules at the initial time. It was then found that petitioner was entitled to be regularized like other daily wage Junior Engineers for whom a conscious decision has been taken by the State Government in 1985 and explained in 1987 by the Cabinet. It is under those circumstances that the Division Bench ordered for regularizing the petitioner in terms of the Government policy which was, though made for daily wage Junior Engineers like the petitioner, but was wrongly denied to him while giving benefit to others. Petitioner was, accordingly, directed to be treated similarly as others, pursuant to the policy decision of the Government. 6 Seen from this perspective, it is clear that the question of petitioner’s appointment being irregular and not in accordance with rule was not even an issue in the case nor was it ever raised as is being raised today for the first time in these contempt proceedings where a bald assertion, unsupported by material facts, is being made in this regard in these proceedings for implementation of the judgment. This cannot be now looked into. 7 We, therefore, direct the State to give the same treatment to the petitioner as other Junior Engineers engaged on 5 daily wage basis within four weeks without demur in accordance with the judgment passed in Letters Patent Appeal aforesaid which has attained finality. This application is, thus, disposed of with the said direction. (S N Hussain) M.E.H./ (Navaniti Prasad Singh)