IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.10328 of 2007 AJOY KUMAR MITRA Versus THE STATE OF BIHAR & ORS ----------- For the petitioner: Mr. Anjani Kumar For the respondents: M/s. R S Pradhan and A N Rai ------- 03. 12.09.2008 The issue now boils down to grant of first time bound promotion to the petitioner from 19.5.1993 as claimed by him. According to the petitioner, this is his entitlement after 10 years of his service since no benefit of promotion has accrued to him in the meanwhile. Respondents in the counter affidavit have tried to show that the petitioner had acquired a jump since he was given a higher pay scale by virtue of an order issued on 21.4.1990 contained in annexure- 2 to the writ application. A plain reading of annexure-2 would show that petitioner was initially put on probation on a particular pay scale and his substantive appointment was confirmed on a particular pay scale which was 1350-2000. This cannot be treated to be a jump in salary to disentitle him to the benefit of first time bound promotion. The other opposition made to the claim of the petitioner is that there is departmental proceeding which was initiated against him and a criminal case was also instituted. But all these are much subsequent events and have no co-relation to the time frame when the right of first time bound promotion accrued in favour of the petitioner. In view of the above stated position the Court is of the - 2 - opinion that neither of the grounds are available to the respondents to deny the benefit of first time bound promotion to the petitioner which accrued to him after his initial substantive appointment including the period of probation. Respondents are directed to take steps for grant of this benefit to the petitioner at the earliest preferably within a period of three months from the date of communication/production of a copy of this order. It is clarified that if by virtue of grant of first time bound promotion, the petitioner is entitled to a higher replacement pay-scale pursuant to the recommendation of the 6th Pay Revision Committee, it is needless to say that respondents will take care of this problem also so as not to compel the petitioner to come back to this Court on that issue also. The writ application is allowed. rkp (Ajay Kumar Tripathi, J)