Civil Writ Petition No.12973 of 1991 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.12973 of 1991 DATE OF DECISION: JULY 6, 2011 Ram Bhagat .....Petitioner VERSUS The State of Haryana & others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH PRESENT: Mr. Anil Ghangas, Advocate, for the petitioner. Mr. Sunil Nehra, Senior DAG, Haryana for the State. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner, who was serving as S.S. Master in Government High School Dhandari, District Hissar, has approached this Court for directing the respondents to promote him from the post of Master to Head Master as his Junior Masters have already been promoted to the said post. The petitioner claims that his name in the seniority of the S.S. Master stood at Sr. No.631, though he has not placed the seniority list on record. As per the petitioner, the respondents have promoted persons as Head Masters upto the seniority list No.688 on 7.5.1990 and thereafter, upto seniority list No.699. The petitioner would plead that his service record was upto Civil Writ Petition No.12973 of 1991 -2- mark and there was nothing, which could be taken into consideration to deny him promotion. The petitioner has averred that he was allowed to cross efficiency bar on 23.7.1990, which would mean that he had a good record of service. The petitioner has stated that the reasons for denial of promotion apparently are that he was successful in challenging the order of his compulsorily retirement, which lead to his reinstatement into service. The petitioner had then filed a writ petition No.16381 of 1990 praying for grant of promotion, which was disposed of on 17.1.1991 with direction to the respondents to decide his representation. The representation was rejected on 9.7.1991. So, the petitioner has filed this writ petition to impugn this action of the respondents. The respondents have filed reply. It is stated that the petitioner was allowed to cross efficiency bar w.e.f. 1.4.1986 on the basis of instructions that his 50% ACRs were good starting from 1962. The petitioner was denied promotion in the year 1990 because his service record in the preceding 10 years did not have 70% good ACRs in accordance with Government instructions. However, averment made in the different paras of the petition have also been denied. Accordingly, it is pleaded that writ petition be dismissed. The sole submission made by the counsel for the petitioner is that the compulsorily retirement order passed retiring the petitioner had been withdrawn once this court had intervened. Though the said order passed by this Court in CWP No.11301 of Civil Writ Petition No.12973 of 1991 -3- 1989 filed by the petitioner has not been placed on record, but has been seen and perused by me as copy thereof is handed over during the course of arguments. The Division Bench of this Court had directed the respondents to reconsider the case of compulsorily retirement of the petitioner on the ground that instructions, which were relied upon to order the compulsorily retirement of the petitioner had been held to be in violation of the Rules. In this background, the Division Bench had directed the respondents to reconsider the case of compulsorily retirement of the petitioner. Thereafter, the order was withdrawn and the petitioner was allowed to superannuate from service. This order does not indicate in any manner that the petitioner had good record of service. It is specifically mentioned in the reply that the petitioner did not fulfill the criteria of 70% good ACRs to earn promotion to the post of Head Master. In fact, the details of reports earned by the petitioner during the last 10 years of the service from the due date of consideration have been annexed with the writ petition. On this basis, it is stated that the petitioner was denied promotion as his case was not covered by the policy instructions for promotion. It is obvious that the promotion from the Master to Head Master is on the basis of seniority-cum-merit. The petitioner may have seniority, but did not have merit for promotion. No case for interference is, thus, made out. The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed. July 06, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH) monika JUDGE