IN THE HIGH COURT OF UTTARAKHAND AT NAINITAL Special Appeal (Defective) No. 36 of 2004 Rakesh Raghan and others ………….. Appellants Versus Uttaranchal State Road Transport Corporation and others .…...……. Respondents Present: Mr. Kishore Kumar, holding brief for Mr. M.C. Pant, Advocate for the appellants. None appears for respondent Nos. 1 & 2. Ms. Neelima Mishra, Advocate holding brief of Mr. Ramji Srivastava, Advocate for respondent Nos.3 & 4. Coram : Hon’ble Barin Ghosh, Chief Justice Hon’ble Sudhanshu Dhulia, Judge Date: 3rd May, 2011 JUDGMENT Barin Ghosh, C.J. (Oral) (Delay Condonation Application) Learned counsel appears on behalf of respondent Nos. 3 & 4 and, accordingly, it must be deemed that the said respondents have been served. 2. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the averments made in the application for condonation of delay. Being satisfied with the reasons furnished for delay in preferring the appeal, we allow the application for condonation of delay. (Special Appeal (Defective) No. 36 of 2004) By consent of the parties, the appeal is taken up for hearing. 2. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the materials on record. 3. Appellants approached this Court by filing a writ petition seeking a direction upon the respondents not to interfere with the working of the petitioners (appellants herein) as Office 2 Assistants Grade II. Appellants were promoted to the posts of Office Assistants Grade II in the year 1999. When the appellants were, thus, promoted, many others were also similarly promoted. Those promotions were cancelled on the ground that the same are not in accordance with law. Challenging cancellation of the promotions, a writ petition was filed in the Hon’ble High Court at Allahabad. Hon’ble Allahabad High Court interfered with the orders of cancellation on the ground that those were passed without notice to the promotees. The Hon’ble Allahabad High Court granted liberty to the respondents to deal with the matter after giving notice. Soon thereafter notices were given to the promotees including the appellants, and thereafter, by orders dated 7th January, 2000 and 8th January, 2000, promotions, thus accorded to the appellants, were cancelled. Challenging the second cancellation, appellants approached this Court by filing the said writ petition. At the time of consideration of the writ petition, this Court noticed that the promotions, as were accorded to the appellants, were in violation to the provisions contained in Clause (2) of Regulation 22 of U.P. State Road Transport Corporation Employees (other than officers) Service Regulations, 1981 dealing with the subject, and that, seniority Rules as provided in Regulation 21 was totally ignored. The Court also found that promotions were accorded more than the available vacancies. The Court, accordingly, refused to interfere with the orders of cancellation. The ground that the orders of cancellation were passed without notice to the appellants, was rejected by the Court. Similarly placed persons as that of the appellants also approached this Court. They also filed writ petitions on similar grounds as were taken by the appellants herein. Those writ petitions have been dismissed. The petitioners in one of those dismissed writ petitions preferred Special Appeal (Defective) No.14 of 2004. A Division Bench of this Court dealt with the said Appeal by its judgment and order dated 27th August, 2004. We have not been persuaded by the counsel for the appellants to take a contrary view than what had been taken by the Division Bench of 3 this Court in its judgment referred to above. The grounds taken in the Appeal are identical to those which had been dealt with by the Division Bench in its judgment and order dated 27th August, 2004 rendered in Special Appeal (Defective) No. 14 of 2004. 4. For the reasons recorded in the said judgment and order of the Division Bench referred to above, we also dismiss this appeal. (Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.) ( Barin Ghosh, C.J.) 03.05.2011 P. Singh