Civil Writ Petition No. 7061 of 2009 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 7061 of 2009 Date of decision: 24.9.2009 Satyavir Singh ...petitioner Versus State of Haryana and others ...respondents. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE RANJIT SINGH Present: Mr. R.K. Malik, Senior Advocate with Mr. Surya Pratap Singh, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Harish Rathee, Sr.DAG, Haryana for the State. ***** RANJIT SINGH J. Haryana Staff Selection Commission advertised 662 posts of Clerks in the year 1987. The selection was made on 15.10.1989 and the names of the candidates were recommended to different departments. The petitioner's name was recommended in Social Welfare Department. He, however, could not be appointed due to non availability of the posts in the said department. The issue had earlier gone up to the Supreme Court and the Court vide judgment dated 18.8.1998, had directed that the posts, which were available up to 15.10.1989 be filled in accordance with the order of merit prepared by the Staff Selection Commission. The name of the petitioner was thus recommended to the Treasuries and Accounts department and the petitioner, accordingly, joined the service on 22.1.2000. Civil Writ Petition No. 7061 of 2009 2 The tentative seniority list was issued on 23.12.2004. The petitioner filed representation against the tentative list so prepared. Thereafter, again the provisional seniority list was issued on 15.3.2007, where the petitioner was not assigned seniority as per the order of merit. The petitioner filed more than one representation and sought his seniority to be fixed in accordance with the merit determined by the Commission. The petitioner was at merit list No. 389 of this selection whereas other batch mates appearing at seniority position No. 735 and 450 were appointed ahead of the petitioner. Still the representation filed by the petitioner was rejected on 2.3.2009 and hence he has filed this writ petition. The written statement has been filed. Efforts are made to justify the fixing of the seniority list by placing reliance on Rule 12 of Haryana Finance Department Treasury (Group C) service rules, 1980. Mr. Rathee refers to this rule and says that the seniority inter se of members of the service is to be determined by the length of continuous service on any post in the service. On this basis, Mr. Rathee would contend that the respondents were appointed far ahead of the petitioner and as per this rule, the respondents have to rank senior to the petitioner, which has so been done. Mr. R.K. Malik, senior counsel representing the petitioner on the other hand, would draw my attention to the proviso of the rule to say that seniority in such like cases will have to be determined on the basis of merit fixed by the Commission. He has further drawn my attention to two Division Benches judgment passed in similar cases while interpreting Rule 12. The Benches in both the cases have taken a view that date of joining to determine seniority would be Civil Writ Petition No. 7061 of 2009 3 wholly untenable when names of some of the candidates were referred to a particular department for posting where there was no vacancy and the same was referred to another department. It is further asserted that if administrative lapse is committed by the Commission and the names of the candidates have been forwarded to such department where there was no vacancy, no fault could be found with the petitioner therein. The writ petitions were accordingly allowed, with directions to the Government to refix the seniority within a period of six months in terms of Rule 12 ibid. The operative part of the judgment annexed as Annexure P-14 reads as under:- “ In the reply filed by the respondents, the stand taken is that the seniority had not been fixed as per the rule for the reason that after selection, the names of some of the candidates had been referred to some departments for posting and on finding that there was vacancy, they had again referred to another department and thus the date of joining had been taken as the date of seniority. This stand is wholly untenable. If an administrative lapse had been committed by the Commission or the names of the candidates had been forwarded to such a department where was no vacancy, no fault could be found with the petitioner. We accordingly allow this petition and direct the State Government to re-fix the seniority within a period of six months from today, in terms of the rules 12 ibid and grant all consequential benefits to those found entitled within three months thereafter. We further direct that before any order is made, the persons likely to be Civil Writ Petition No. 7061 of 2009 4 affected by it, would be given a hearing.” The facts in the present case are identical. Adopting the same course as a matter of following the precedents, the writ petition is allowed. Directions are issued to the respondents to re-fix the seniority of the petitioner in terms of Rule 12 of the Rules as has been laid down in the Division Bench judgment of this Court within a period of six months. Consequential benefits, if any, of course would follow. September 24, 2009 ( RANJIT SINGH ) rts JUDGE