- 1 - IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA CWP 493 of 1997. Date of decision June 2, 2006. Chiranji Lal Awasthi …..Petitioner. Versus H.P. State Electricity Board. ……Respondent. Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice V.K.Gupta, C.J. Hon’ble Mr. Justice Deepak Gupta, J. Whether approved for reporting?1 For the petitioner Mr. Rajiv Sharma, Sr. Advocate, with Mr. Surinder Sharma, Advocate. For the respondent: Mr. Shrawan Dogra, Advocate. ----------------------------------------------- V.K.Gupta, C.J. (Oral) This petition is taken up today for final disposal, rather than passing any order on CMP 719 of 2006. The petitioner had filed OA (M) 28/95 (1997) before the H.P. Administrative Tribunal claiming certain reliefs including the relief of directing the respondents to treat him as a clerk and granting the pay scales of the post of clerk as also to continue to assign the petitioner clerical duties and not to force him to take up the duties of technical nature. Vide judgment dated 4.11.1997, the petitioner’s said OA was dismissed by the Tribunal; hence the present petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. 1 Whether reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the judgement? - 2 - Undoubtedly, the petitioner belongs to the technical cadre. He was never appointed as a clerk. He was originally appointed as a T-mate and thereafter promoted as Assistant Lineman. It is because of the interim orders passed in the last two and a half decades or more that the petitioner has been performing duties other than those of technical nature. The petitioner continues to be holding the substantive post of a technical nature. Whether the petitioner today is an Assistant Lineman or has been promoted to a higher post of a Lineman or a still higher post, the fact remains that he continues to hold substantively the post of a technical nature. Merely because due to some exigencies, if at some stage or at some point of time, the petitioner was asked to perform the duties of a clerk or of a clerical nature, that would not change and could not have changed his substantive appointment or the nature of his substantive appointment, nor would it confer upon him any right of belonging to any different post. The petition is dismissed. However, looking to the background of the case and also the fact that in the past two and a half decades, or thereabout the petitioner has been performing the duties of a peculiar nature, we direct the Chairman, H.P. State Electricity Board personally to examine the petitioner’s case, and to consider it on its merits and in accordance with the Rules, and to take a final decision within three months from today about the future nature of the - 3 - duties that the petitioner would be performing. Interim order is vacated. CMP 719 of 2006. Dismissed. (V.K.Gupta), C.J. June 2, 2006(PC). (Deepak Gupta), J.