Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [1] IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 Date of Decision: 18.12.2009 Instructors/Foreman Instructors Association ......Petitioner Versus The State of Haryana and another .......Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HEMANT GUPTA. HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JORA SINGH 1. Whether Reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Present: Ms. Deepika Verma, Advocate, for the petitioner. Shri Gagandeep Singh Wasu, Senior DAG, Haryana, for the respondents. HEMANT GUPTA, J. (Oral). Challenge in the present writ petition is to the amendment carried out in Appendix 18 of the Punjab Civil Services Rules, Vol.I, Part-II, whereby, the Principals, Training and Placement Officers, Workshop Superintendents, Foreman Instructors, Workshop Instructors, Librarians of Government Polytechnic Institutions in the State of Haryana, were included in non-vacational staff. Rule 8.59 of the Punjab Civil Services Rules (for short `the Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [2] Rules'), deals with the vacation. The orders under the said Rule are given in Annexure-I. Appendix 18 is a complete list of the Government Employees serving in vacation departments. The relevant extracts of the said Rule and Appendix read as under:- “8.59. Unless the contrary appears from the context vacation counts as duty and not as leave. A competent authority may specify the departments or parts of the departments which would be treated as vacation departments and the conditions in which a Government employee should be considered to have availed himself of a vacation. Note:The orders issued under this rule are given in the Annexure I to this section. ANNEXURE I (see Rule 8.59) 1. A vacation department is a department, or part of a department, to which regular vacations are allowed during which Government employees serving in the department are permitted to be absent from duty. 2. (i) The following classes of Government employees serve in vacation department when the conditions of paragraph 1 above are fulfilled:- (a) Educational Officers, other than the Director of Public Instruction and inspecting officers, and their establishment. (b) Judicial officers of rank not higher than that of subordinate judge and their establishments. (c) Any other class of Government Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [3] employee with a competent authority may declare to be so serving. (ii) In case of doubt, a competent authority may decide whether or not a particular Government employee is serving in a vacation department. xx xx xx Note. 2. - A complete list of Government employees serving in vacation departments is given in Appendix 18 in part II of this volume.” APPENDIX 18 [ Referred to in Note 2 of paragraph 2 of Annexure I to Section I of Chapter VIII ] List of Government Employees serving in Vacation Departments The following is a complete list of Government employees declared to be serving in vacation departments:- I. Judicial `1. Sub-Judges and their establishments including Sub-Judges employed as Judges of Small Cause Courts excluding Process Serving Establishment actually employed on work connected with process-serving. II. (A) Education (General) `1. Principals, Staff, Laboratory Attendants and establishment of Government Colleges for boys and girls excluding Librarians, clerical staff, Restorers and other class IV Government employees. Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [4] `2. Head and staff and Laboratory Attendants of Government school for boys and girls excluding clerical staff and other class IV Government employees. (B) Education (Technical) and Government Engineering Colleges Principals and staff (excluding ministerial and class IV employees) of the Government Polytechnic Institutions. III Industries Principals and other teaching staff of Government Foot Wear Institute, Rewari. IV Health Principals, Professors, Associate Professors, Readers, Assistant Professors, Lecturers and Junior Lecturers in Pharmacy Department. By Notification Annexure P.3 dated 22.10.2007, the categories of staff of Government Polytechnics, as mentioned above, have been excluded from the category of the staff working in the vacation departments. For the staff working in vacation departments, vacation period counts as duty and not as leave as per Rule 8.59 of the Rules. It is for this reason, the petitioners assert that by excluding certain categories of staff of the Polytechnics from the list of vacation departments, they have been unfairly treated and that the amendment of excluding them is arbitrary and discriminatory. The ground of challenge is that the similar staff working with the Engineering Colleges has not been declared as non-vacational staff and, therefore, the amendment restricted to the staff engaged in Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [5] the Polytechnic Institutions is arbitrary and discriminatory. It is also contended that the amendment has been carried out without any reasonable classification and has no nexus with the object sought to be achieved, as some of the supervisory staff continues to be vacational staff. In the written statement, the State has given the following reasons necessitating the amendment:- (i) In addition to teaching work, the Principals of Polytechnic have been assigned the administrative duties also, which require continuous attention and presence of the Principal in institution being Head of institution. (ii) Superintendent Workshop is required to arrange for the procurement and installation of machinery and equipment in the workshop as per the changing needs of curriculum for students teaching. The workshop machinery has also to be kept in working condition. All these activities require continuous attention and presence of Superintendent Workshop in the institution so that the work can easily be handled during the vacation period. (iii) The post of Foreman Instructor is a next supervisory post in the Workshop of Polytechnics after Superintendent Workshop. The presence of Foreman Instructors during the vacation period is essential to arrange the machinery and equipment in working order and to arrange raw material required for the training well in time and to assist the Superintendent Workshop for this work. The presence of Foreman Instructor is also required to Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [6] maintain liaison with the industries for the training of students which is conveniently possible during the vacation period. (iv) In three-tier system of the staff structure for training in Workshops in Polytechnics, the post of Workshop Instructor is a third important part of the Workshop staff structure. The post of Workshop Instructor is required to ensure the availability of various machinery and equipments required in the workshops as per the curriculum and to ensure that the machinery and equipment is in working order. The post of Workshop Instructor is also required to arrange the raw material required for the training and this can be arranged conveniently in vacation so that study of students may not suffer. (v) The duties of Head of Department/Senior Lecturers mainly are teaching and supervisory work of teaching. During the vacation in the Polytechnics/Institutes, their presence is not required, as no teaching work is done during vacation. Rather Head of Department or Senior Lecturers are not directly responsible for execution of repair/maintenance work. Hence, these posts have been considered as vacational. (vi) Lecturers are basically responsible for teaching and the conduct of practical in various laboratories. The Laboratory Instructors and Laboratory Assistants assist them in the maintenance and repair of equipment and hence they have been considered as vacational staff.” It is also pointed out that the amendment has been carried out only for Polytechnics in view of the requirements of Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [7] Polytechnics/Institutions to provide a better study and training to the students of Polytechnics running diploma courses. The services of the staff are required during vacations due to increase intake of students and for updation of machinery and equipment with the revision of curriculum and development in technology. Rule 8.59 of the Rules authorises the competent authority to specify the departments or part of the departments, which would be treated as vacation departments. In view of the said Rule, it is required to be examined whether the decision of the competent authority to treat certain categories of the employees working in the Polytechnic institutions as vacational staff is legally justified. The reasons given are numerous as reproduced above. We do not find that such reasons have no nexus with the object to be achieved to treat the employees of the Polytechnics as non-vacational staff. The Polytechnics impart vocational training to a large number of students at the grass root level to prepare and engage them in constructive manner in life. Therefore, to equip the Polytechnics with the necessary machinery and equipment and to prepare them to meet the intake of students, the amendment in question cannot be said to be arbitrary. The members of the petitioner- Union are being paid the salary for the entire year. By treating such members of the petitioner-Union as vacational staff, the only loss to them is of some additional vacations. There is no such right with the members of the petitioner-Union that they must have vacations at par with the Engineering Colleges. The Engineering Colleges prepare the Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 2008 [8] students for Degree and form a different class. May be with the passage of time even the Degree Colleges may also be treated as non- vacational department, but at this moment, treatment of Polytechnics as vacational staff, cannot be said to be arbitrary and without any reasonable basis, which classification may warrant interference by this Court in exercise of its writ jurisdiction. Hence, the present writ petition is dismissed. [ HEMANT GUPTA ] JUDGE [ JORA SINGH ] JUDGE 18-12-2009 vimal/ds