CWP No. 1306 of 2008 1 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH CWP No. 1306 of 2008 Date of Decision: April 29, 2009 Roshan Lal and others ...... Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and others ...... Respondents Coram: Hon'ble Mr. Justice Ajay Tewari Present: Mr.R.K.Malik, Sr. Advocate with Mr.Vishal Malik, Advocate for the petitioner. Mr. Harish Rathee, Senior DAG, Haryana. **** 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? Ajay Tewari, J. The petitioners were appointed as Peons in the year 1997. At that time their services were governed by the Punjab State (Class-IV) Service Rules, 1963 as per which the educational requirements were that the applicant should possess the knowledge of regional language and of English. Thereafter w.e.f. 4.2.98 the Haryana Education Directorate (Group D) Service Rules, 1998 were promulgated as per which the essential qualification for recruitment was middle pass with Hindi. By advertisement dated 6.10.2007, 13 posts of Peons were notified with the stipulation that the employees working on daily wages/contract basis would be granted CWP No. 1306 of 2008 2 weightage and age relaxation. The petitioners applied and requested for grant of relaxation under Rule 17 of the said Rules in educational qualifications. However, their candidature was not considered because the relaxation was not granted to them. It is this action which has been challenged in the present writ petition. Learned counsel for the petitioners has primarily argued on two points. The first argument is that at the time when the petitioners were inducted they were qualified and any subsequent change in the qualification would not affect them adversely. The second argument of learned counsel for the petitioners is that the private respondents No.4 to 10 were persons who similarly did not have either essential educational qualification or the qualification of experience, however, relaxation was granted to them but not to the petitioners. He has further argued that out of 13 posts advertised only 8 were filled and thus the petitioners were also entitled to be similarly treated as respondents No. 4 to 10. The stand of the respondents is that the petitioners not being eligible and there being no right inherent in an employee to claim relaxation, the action of the respondents cannot be faulted. As far as the first argument is concerned, in judgment titled Vijay Kumar and others v. State of Haryana and another reported as 2002(6) SLR 65 it was held as follows:- “At the very outset, the counsel for the petitioners drew my attention to a Division Bench judgment of this Court in Civil Writ Petition No. 6339 of 2000. A similar point cropped up before the Division Bench and it was observed as under;- “By this order, we dispose of three civil writ petitions bearing CWP Nos. 14637 of 2000, 1909 and 2001 and 6339 of 2000 as in our opinion all the 3 writ CWP No. 1306 of 2008 3 petitions can be disposed of by a common order. The petitioners in all the 3 writ petitions, no doubt, have given challenge to the advertisement published by the Government on 14.11.1999 vide which the combination of subjects in BA has been changed for the post of Social Studies Master/Mistress in the light of the rules which came into force on 12.5.1998 yet we are not inclined to quash that combination because it is always in the domain of the Government to change the qualifications for the candidates but here is a case where the petitioners are in service on ad-hoc basis prior to 12.5.1998. They have rendered service3 running into years. It will be certainly a great hardship for those teachers working on ad hoc basis, if they are made ineligible as per the advertisement dated 14.11.1999. Therefore, we dispose of this writ petition by giving directions to the respondents that ad hoc/contractual Masters/Mistresses who were in service as on 12.5.1998 shall not be considered ineligible for the purpose of examination which is likely to be conducted by the Government in pursuance to the advertisement dated 14.11.1999. This order will apply to those teachers who were in service prior to 12.5.1998 and were continuing till 14.11.1959.” As regards the second argument also the plea of the respondents is that the relaxation had been granted only because of peculiar circumstances of the individual cases of those employees. Interestingly in the letter granting relaxation Annexure P-8 the following reason has been mentioned in support of the decision of grant of relaxation:- “In the above mentioned contract employees the candidates at Sr. No.2, 5, 6, 10, 11 and 12 total 6 employees do not possess the qualification of 8th as CWP No. 1306 of 2008 4 prescribed under the Rules dated 4.2.98, but it is necessary to mention here that earlier statutory Rules 1963 (copy of which is attached as A) and appointments are made in accordance with the said rules as there were separate rules of the department......................” It would be seen that the argument pressed into use for granting relaxation to those persons is the same as is being taken by learned counsel for the petitioners. In my opinion this petition deserves to succeed on both the grounds taken by learned counsel for the petitioners and is accordingly allowed as mentioned above. It is, therefore, directed that relaxation in educational qualification be granted to the petitioners as has been granted to the private respondents and thereafter they be considered as per the criteria mentioned in preliminary submission No.2. If any of the petitioner obtains marks higher than the last selected candidate they be offered appointment. It is further made clear that any selected petitioner/s would be deemed to have been notionally appointed w.e.f. 8.2.2008 and the monetary benefits would be released only from the date of their actual appointment. (AJAY TEWARI) JUDGE April 29, 2009 sunita