Civil Writ Petition No. 12538 of 1991 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 12538 of 1991 Date of decision: 14.07.2011. Gurdial Singh Sidhu and others ...Petitioners Versus The Punjab Water Supply & Sewerage Board and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. Vivek Sharma, Advocate, for the petitioners. None for the respondents. RANJIT SINGH J. The petitioners had approached this Court through this writ petition with the grievance that respondents No. 2 to 11, who were junior to the petitioners, were promoted without considering the case of the petitioners. The petitioners had, accordingly, sought writ to quash the order of promotion dated 30.05.1991. Petitioner No. 1 had initially joined PWD (Public Health Department) as Sectional Officer. Petitioner No. 2 had joined PWD, Public Health, Punjab as Sectional Officer. Both these petitioners were permanently allocated to The Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board (respondent No. 1) vide order dated 30.09.1987. They were absorbed against the post as these existed on 01.01.1977. Both the petitioners are diploma holders. Sh. Hardev Singh (petitioner No. 3) was directly recruited by the respondent-Board as Sectional Officer. Similarly, petitioner Civil Writ Petition No. 12538 of 1991 2 No. 4 was directly recruited in the same category. Both the petitioners are having qualification of AMIE. The post of Sectional Officer has now been designated as Junior Engineer. Thus, all the four petitioners are Junior Engineers (Mechanical). Respondents No. 2 to 9 are also Junior Engineers and are diploma holders in Civil Engineering. Respondents No. 10 and 11 are Junior Engineers, who are AMIE (Civil). One Sh. Ram Asra was subsequently impleaded as respondent No. 12 and was statedly working as J.E. (Mechanical). Respondent-Board had circulated seniority list of all the Junior Engineers working in the Board. It is stated that common seniority list was maintained by respondent-Board and the copy of this seniority list so circulated on 15.01.1988 is annexed with the petition as Annexure P-1. The petitioners are shown at serial Nos. 15, 17, 132 and 133 in this seniority list whereas the respondents are shown at serial Nos. 16 to 28, 174 and 194 respectively. The promotion post of Junior Engineer is Sub Divisional Engineer. The service conditions of the petitioners as well as respondents No. 2 to 11 are governed by the Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Service) Regulations, 1981. Reference is made to Regulation 2.2 , which provides the authority to make the appointment to the service. Qualification and method of appointment is given in Appendix 'B'. All appointments and promotions are required to be made on the basis of seniority-cum-merit. Certain posts of Sub Divisional Engineer were lying vacant with the respondent-Board. The petitioners were fully eligible and qualified for the appointment for promotion to the said posts. They represented to the Board for being promoted to the said posts. Civil Writ Petition No. 12538 of 1991 3 The petitioners were under apprehension that respondent-Board was likely to promote the Junior Engineer (Civil) to the posts lying vacant. Since this was against the rule position and law, the petitioner had represented and had prayed for being promoted on the ground of seniority. Copies of the representation have been placed on record. The respondent-Board still went ahead to promote 24 Junior Engineers to the post of Sub Divisional Engineer on 30.05.1991. Respondents No. 2 to 11 and later impleaded respondent No. 12 were junior to the petitioners and were promoted. The petitioners were not considered for promotion. They had, accordingly, challenged this action of the Board on various grounds. Some of the private respondents have filed reply. It is stated that petitioners No. 1 and 4 were appointed against the post of Sectional Officer (Mechanical) and are having diploma in Mechanical Engineering. As per the reply, the respondents have been maintaining seniority list for civil and Mechanic cadre. On this basis, the prayer made in the writ petition is opposed. At the very outset counsel for the petitioner has drawn my attention to the judgment passed in CWP No. 781 of 1997 titled as R.K. Gupta, Sub Divisional Engineer (Mechanical), Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Punjab, Chandigarh versus Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Punjab, Chandigarh and another decided by a Division Bench of this Court settling the controversy involved in the present case. In this writ petition, the petitioner, who was working as Sub Divisional Engineer with the respondent Punjab Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Chandigarh had prayed for writ in the nature of prohibition directing the Board not Civil Writ Petition No. 12538 of 1991 4 to combine seniority lists of Sub Divisional Engineers (Mechanical) and those of SDE (Civil) in view of their different qualifications. The contention was that persons belonging to different disciplines cannot be placed in a common seniority list. The Division Bench noticed the judgment passed in CWP No. 15782 of 1994, where this precise question has already been adjudicated. The same rules are applicable in this case. It was held that the rules do not provide that there would be separate seniority of Sub Divisional Engineers possessing the qualification of a degree in Civil or Mechanical Engineering. The Court, accordingly, held that these employees shall be borne on a common seniority list. This judgment passed in CWP No. 15782 of 1994 was assailed by filing LPA No. 1182 of 1996 and it was affirmed on 17.12.1996. The appeal was dismissed. SLP No. 4581 of 1997 was also dismissed against this judgment by the Hon'ble Supreme Court on 08.07.1997. In view of this, no need is left to consider the issue again as it is already settled. The present writ petition, accordingly, is allowed, in view of the ratio of law laid down in CWP No. 15782 of 1994. Direction, therefore, is issued to the respondents to consider and the petitioners for promotion to the post of Sectional Engineer from the date their juniors, respondents No. 2 to 11 were promoted, in case, they are, otherwise, found eligible and fit for promotion. Let this exercise be completed within a period of three months from the date of receipt of copy of this order. The writ petition is, accordingly, allowed. July 14, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH) rts JUDGE