C.W.P. No.2872 of 2010 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH. C.W.P. No.2872 of 2010 Date of Decision: 28.07.2011 Darshna Devi ....Petitioner Versus Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, Sector 6, Panchkula through its Managing Director ...Respondents C.W.P. No.19211 of 2010 Inder Singh ...Petitioner Versus Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, Sector 6, Panchkula through its Managing Director and others ...Respondents CORAM : Hon'ble Ms. Justice Nirmaljit Kaur Present:- Mr. Y.P. Malik, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Mohnish Sharma, Advocate for the respondents. ***** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers 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 ? ** NIRMALJIT KAUR, J. This order shall dispose of CWP No.2872 of 2010 and CWP No.19211 of 2010 as the issue involved in both the cases is same. For the sake of convenience, the facts are being taken from CWP No.2872 of 2010. C.W.P. No.2872 of 2010 2 Through the present writ petition, the petitioner is praying for issuance of direction to the respondents to grant the petitioner the annual increments by setting aside the condition of passing/qualifying the test in type-writing. The husband of the petitioner was serving in H.S.E.B, later on re-named as U.H.B.V.N. He died on 10.11.1991. The petitioner was given compassionate appointment vide letter dated 10.04.1992. As per the instructions/policy of the Department, the promotional posts were reserved to the extent of 20% for Class IV employees who have passed matriculation and have completed five years regular service. The Board of Directors UHBVN, in its meeting held on 24.01.2003, revised the qualification of Class-IV employee for promotion to the post of Lower Divisional Clerk (for short L.D.C.) from Matriculation to 10+2 with working knowledge of computer vide office order dated 20.03.2003 (Annexure P-2). Since the petitioner was qualified and had more than 12½ years of experience, she was promoted to the post of Class-III i.e L.D.C vide office order dated 01.09.2005. In the promotion order dated 01.09.2005, the authority inserted condition No.5 to the effect that such official shall have to qualify test in type-writing in Hindi/English at the speed of 25/30 words p.m respectively within one year of his/her promotion. In case, the person, who is promotee fails to qualify the prescribed test within the stipulated period, he/she shall not be allowed any annual increment. The prayer of the petitioner has been vehemently opposed. However, it has not been disputed that the Government had already exempted the Lower Divisional Clerk from the condition of passing the written test for the purpose of grant of increment qua those who had already crossed 45 years of age as per Office Order dated 07.06.1990 (Annexure P-5). The petitioner had already crossed the age of 45 years on the date of promotion as Lower Divisional Clerk in 20% quota of Class-IV C.W.P. No.2872 of 2010 3 employee. Thus, the said condition is not applicable to the petitioner. Secondly, it is evident from Office Order dated 20.02.2003 (Annexure P-2) that the qualification for promotion for all Class-III posts was revised from “matriculation to 10+2 with working knowledge of computer”. Thus, a perusal of the same shows that there was no requirement to pass the said test. The only requirement was to have the knowledge of typing. The petitioner admittedly had the knowledge of computer. The case of the petitioner is squarely covered by the judgment passed by this Court in CWP No.5566 of 1999 titled as Prithvi Raj vs. State of Haryana and others, wherein, the said issue was decided as under :- “ So far as appointment other than by direct recruitment is concerned which is to be considered in the present case as the petitioner in this case is a promotee, the requirement is knowledge of Hindi or English type writing. This is the basic difference between the requirements for the direct recruits and the promotee. When the rule does not specify passing of typing test, the respondents cannot insist that the petitioner should pass typing test for getting his increment/s released.” Similarly, in the present case also, the requirement is the knowledge of computer and not the requirement of passing the said test. As such, it is not denied that the petitioner has the knowledge of computer/typing. In fact, following the same principal, the Transport Department, Chief Secretary to Government Haryana and the Irrigation Department have accordingly exempted the Clerks from passing the departmental type test who have been promoted from Class-IV category, which is evident from Office Orders placed on record as Annexures P-6, P-7 and P-8, respectively. In view of the above, the present petitions are allowed. The C.W.P. No.2872 of 2010 4 petitioners are exempted from passing the type writing test and the respondents are, accordingly, directed to grant them annual increment as per their entitlement. A photocopy of this order be placed on the file of another connected case. (NIRMALJIT KAUR) 28.07.2011 JUDGE gurpreet