CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 1 }: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH DATE OF DECISION: JUNE 01, 2011 Jarnail Singh .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana and others ....Respondents CORAM:- HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? PRESENT: Mr. A.P.S.Shergill, Advocate, for the petitioner. Ms. Shruti Jain, AAG, Haryana, for the State. Mr. Dhiraj Chawla, Advocate, for respondent Nos.2 to 4. **** RANJIT SINGH, J. The petitioner seeks direction to the respondents to revise his pay scale in terms of the Government order dated 19.8.2009 on the basis of judgement passed by this Court in Civil Writ Petition No.5271 of 1986 decided on 26.7.1991 (Annexure P-1). Further prayer is to fix his seniority in new specialized cadre of professionals with respect to Civil Engineers. The petitioner has prayed for fixing his seniority over and above Sh.Bhagmal and Sh.Hamvir Singh, Deputy General Managers, by granting him retrospective benefit of promotion in terms of the quota prescribed for CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 2 }: the professional cadre. The petitioner was initially appointed as Manager (Civil) with the respondent-Corporation. The Corporation re-designated the post of Junior Engineer as Assistant Manager (Industrial Area) and that of Sub Divisional Engineer as Manager (Industrial Area). The petitioner, who was working as Sub Divisional Engineer, was given the pay scale of `400-1100. The petitioner claims to be Ist Class Graduate degree holder of Science and Engineering and was appointed as Manager (Civil) on 4.12.1981. Respondent Nos.3 and 4 are Diploma Holders with AMIE and were appointed on 24.9.1982 and 3.2.1978 as Manager (Civil) and Assistant Manager (Civil) respectively. The grievance of the petitioner is that despite approval by the Board of Directors, the benefit of the pay scale has not been accorded to him at par with similarly situated employees. He is also aggrieved against non-fixation of his proper seniority by not putting the petitioner in the new specialized cadre. He has consequently been placed below respondent Nos.3 and 4. So far as the pay fixation is concerned, it is stated that the pay scale of Assistant Manager and Senior Manager at par with Junior Engineer and Executive Engineer, have not been revised. These, as per the petitioner, should be brought at par. The pay scales have further been revised subsequently but the benefit of higher pay scale was not granted. The petitioner had then filed Civil Writ Petition No.5271 of 1986, holding the petitioner entitled to grant of revision of pay scale without waiting for the decision of the State Government in terms of the relevant provisions of the Article of the CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 3 }: Association. The benefit of higher pay scale was granted but only after the level of position being held by the petitioner. Similar benefits were not granted to the senior positions. The petitioner would claim that the decision of the State Government was concerning all categories of employees and could not be applied in a limited manner. Accordingly, the petitioner has approached this Court with multiple grievances. Short written statement on behalf of respondent No.2 has been filed. However, when the case came up for hearing, the counsel appearing for the petitioner prayed for an adjournment on the ground that written statement has not been filed. The attention of the counsel was then invited to the fact that copy of the written statement is on record and there is evidence of its supply to the counsel for the petitioner. The attempt on the part of the counsel to seek adjournment on this flimsy ground was accordingly declined and he was asked to make submissions in the case. The counsel prayed for adjournment, which was again declined. However, the case was passed over on the request made by counsel for the petitioner. When the case was called for hearing, Mr.A.P.S.Shergill has appeared, though earlier Mr.Jagjit Singh, Advocate, had appeared. Mr.Shergill again prayed for an adjournment, which was declined. The counsel has not made any submission and accordingly the case is taken up for hearing and is being decided. In the short reply, it is pleaded that writ petition is liable to be dismissed only on the ground that the petitioner has not approached the Court with clean hands and has deliberately withheld CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 4 }: material facts with a view to abuse and misuse the process of law. It is pointed out that the recruitment and promotion policy, according to which the petitioner is claiming seniority over Bhagmal, respondent No.3 and Hamvir Singh, respondent No.4, was subject matter of challenge in earlier Civil Writ Petition No.8934 of 1999. The petitioner had then challenged the promotion of Sh.Bhagmal granted on 23.6.1999 on the ground that he was junior to the petitioner. The promotion of Bhagmal, however, was upheld and the writ petition was dismissed on 8.1.2002. It was also observed that the petitioner has no merit as compared to Sh.Bhagmal. The relevant part of the observation is as under:- “In our opinion, the guidelines mentioned in para No.5 are not applicable in the present case as it talks of personal rank and pay promotion and not with regard to regular promotion for which the policy of 1999 will come into play and on the date of the consideration of promotion the petitioner had no merit as compared to respondent No.3. Therefore, the action on behalf of respondents No.1 and 2 in promoting Shri Bhagmal to the post of Assistant General Manager was legal and justified. Resultantly, we do not see any merit in this writ petition and hereby dismiss the same.” The case of the petitioner for promotion from Senior Manager to the post of Assistant General Manager was again considered on 21.9.2001 but the petitioner could not make the grade in terms of the parameters laid down for promotion under the CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 5 }: recruitment and promotion policy. Respondent No.4, however, was promoted on 26.2.2002. Being aggrieved against the promotion of respondent No.4, the petitioner filed CWP No.11547 of 2007, which was disposed of with a direction to the respondent-Corporation to take a decision on the representation and legal notice filed by the petitioner. Thereafter, a detailed order was passed on 6.2.2009 after affording proper opportunity of personal hearing to the petitioner. It is observed that the petitioner failed to achieve the score required for promotion and so could not be promoted whereas respondent Nos.3 and 4 were promoted as per the policy and, thus, they had become senior to the petitioner. Aggrieved against this order, the petitioner has filed another Civil Writ Petition No.20434 of 2009, which was withdrawn with liberty to approach the respondent-Corporation by filing an appropriate representation. Pursuant to this liberty, the petitioner made a representation on 7.10.2010, where he has again raised a question of seniority over respondent Nos.3 and 4, though the same was earlier settled. This representation was decided on 3.11.2010, which order is not put to any challenge by the petitioner. It is, thus, clear that seniority of respondent Nos.3 and 4 was made subject matter of more than one writ petitions but the petitioner has deliberately withheld material particulars regarding filing of such writ petitions and the decisions taken thereon. It is accordingly pleaded that the petitioner has made an attempt to withhold the information and, thus, has tried to mislead the Court. I have considered the submissions so made before me and find that there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the petitioner CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 6 }: to withhold complete information while filing the present writ petition. Though the petitioner had made mention of filing Civil Writ Petition Nos.5271 of 1986 and 20434 of 2009 but has not made mention to the complete factual details as disclosed in the short reply filed by the respondents. The petitioner has also not placed the complete factual position before the Court and even has not placed the orders passed by respondents on the representation filed by the petitioner. Apparently, there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the petitioner to mis-state the facts or to hide information. Despite having received the copy of reply, the counsel made an attempt to seek adjournment on the ground that the reply has not been filed or copy thereof was not supplied to the counsel. The copy of the reply was placed on record through a written communication addressed to the Registrar by counsel for the respondents and this contains an endorsement, showing receipt of reply by Sh.Mani Ram, on behalf of Sh.A.P.S.Shergill, Advocate, counsel for the petitioner and is dated 20.4.2011. In this background, the attempt on the part of the petitioner to state wrong facts before the Court certainly would be uncalled for and not expected from counsel. The petitioner has, thus, not approached the Court with clean hands and for this reason alone, he has lost his right to be heard. Even otherwise, there is no merit in the claim for seniority as made in the writ petition in view of the details as noted and brought on record in the reply. The writ petition, therefore, deserves to be dismissed. Since the petitioner has made an attempt to withhold information and CIVIL WRIT PETITION NO.17787 OF 2010 :{ 7 }: has not approached the Court with clean hands, the writ petition is dismissed with costs of `10,000/-. June 01, 2011 (RANJIT SINGH ) khurmi JUDGE