Civil Writ Petition No. 9787 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 9787 of 2010 Date of decision: 07.12.2010 Raj Kumar and another ...Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and another ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. R.K. Malik, Senior Advocate with Mr. Kohal Sharma, Advocate for the petitioners. Mr. Harish Rathee, Sr. DAG, Haryana for the State. RANJIT SINGH J. The petitioners were appointed on daily wage basis as Helper Painters through employment exchange and they joined on the post on 02.04.1993. The petitioners, thereafter, continued to work on the said post. Their services were regularised w.e.f. 01.02.1996 as Helper Painters. One Jeevan Ram was appointed as Helper Painter at Kurukshetra Depot where the petitioners were working. Jeevan Ram was promoted as Assistant Painter w.e.f. 31.07.1998. The petitioners filed a representation that they be also promoted as Assistant Painters on the ground that said Jeevan Ram was junior to the petitioners. Instead the petitioners were issued show cause notice averring that the petitioners were not entitled to be promoted w.e.f. 31.07.1998 as they did not have three years experience as Helper Painter on the said date. The petitioners filed detailed reply and the Civil Writ Petition No. 9787 of 2010 2 impugned orders Annexures P-6 and P-7 were passed changing the date of promotion of the petitioners from 31.07.1998 to 29.06.2004. The petitioners have, accordingly impugned these orders through the present writ petition. In the reply filed, reference is made to the representation (Annexure P-3) submitted by the petitioners. As per the reply, it came to the notice that the petitioners had been wrongly promoted as Assistant Painters despite the fact that they did not fulfill the qualifications and experience prescribed for promotion to the post of Assistant Painter. Mention is made to the service rules, which lays down that 3 years experience is required for promotion to the post of Assistant Painter. It is stated that the petitioner did not have three years experience as Assistant Helper on the regular basis at the relevant time and could not have been promoted as Assistant Helper. Reference is also made to the Government instructions where the benefit of regular service on a post is required to be counted as experience for promotion to the higher post and not any other kind of experience gained on service like adhoc, daily basis etc. Instructions, Annexures R-1 and R-2 are referred in this regard. Plea, accordingly, is that the petitioners are not entitled to be promoted as Assistant Painters w.e.f. 31.07.1998. Mr. R.K. Malik, senior counsel has relied upon a decision in Civil Writ Petition No. 5246 of 2008 titled as Neelam Rathee Dahiya and others versus State of Haryana and others decided on 11.09.2009 where the issue arising in this case was considered by this Court. In Neelam Rathee Dahiya's case (supra), the issue Civil Writ Petition No. 9787 of 2010 3 apparently was regarding the interpretation of word 'experience' as is arising in this case. The court has further relied upon a Division Bench judgment in the cases of Geeta Devi Vs. State of Haryana and others , CWP No. 21663 of 2008 decided on 03.07.2009 and the cases of Y.V. Rangaiah Vs. J. Sreenivasa Rao, (1983) 3 SCC 285, State of Rajasthan Vs. R. Dayal and others (1997) 10 SCC 419, Delhi Judicial Service Association Vs. Delhi High Court and others (2001) 5 SCC 145, Arun Singh Rathore and others Vs. B.N. Chaturvedi and others (2007) 11 SCC 605, Dr. Ravinder Pal Kaur Vs. State of Punjab and others, 1979 (2) SLR 645, Balbir Singh Yadav and others Vs. State of Haryana and others 1984 (1) SLR 466 and Dharam Singh Vs. State of Punjab and others 1985 (1) SLR 358. The ratio of law which can be culled out is as under:- “Therefore, the principle which emerges from the aforesaid case law is that once an employee has gained experience of working on adhoc or regular basis then the requirement of the rule stands satisfied. It is not material whether such an experience has been gained while working on adhoc basis or on regular basis. As long as a person has earned the experience then such an experience cannot be ignored and on that basis the petitioner could not have been non-suited from consideration or promotion to the post of the Head of the Department.” Accordingly, the experience which the employee gained while working on adhoc or regular basis then the requirement of Civil Writ Petition No. 9787 of 2010 4 experience shall stand satisfied as has been held. It is not material that such an experience gained while working on regular or on adhoc basis. As long as the person has earned the experience then such experience cannot be ignored on the basis that it was not on a regular post. That being the legal position, the action of the respondents in reverting the petitioners cannot be sustained. The same is set aside. The writ petition is, accordingly, allowed. There shall be no order as to costs. December 07, 2010 ( RANJIT SINGH ) rts JUDGE