: 1 : IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION REVIEW PETITION (ST) NO. 6382 OF 2009 IN CIVIL APPLICATION NO. 1230 OF 2008 IN WRIT PETITION NO. 5580 OF 2007 Shri Subhash Laxman Tidke ... Petitioner Vs 1. The Government of Maharashtra & 2 ors. ... Respondents Mr. Uday P. Warunjikar for the petitioner. Mr. V.P. Malwankar, AGP, for the respondents. Mr. Vinay Sonpal, AGP, present. CORAM: S.B. MHASE & D.B. BHOSALE, JJ. DATED : 31ST JULY, 2009. P.C.: 1. We have reconsidered the matter because while passing the order dated 13th June, 2009, we have simply observed “No urgency made out. The application is rejected”. The only ground made out in the application for recalling the said order is that Civil Application No.1230 of 2008 was : 2 : listed before the bench comprising of Justice Bilal Nazki and Justice J.H. Bhatia and it is submitted that the said court had passed an order on 19th December, 2008, disposing of the Civil Application with a direction to the Registry to list th Petition for final hearing on 25th February, 2009. However, the said order is not seen on the Farad sheet of the Civil Application No.1230 of 2008. The Farad sheet only points out thus: “Shri Uday Warunjikar for the petitioner. Shri V.P. Malvankar for the (R) AGP. Coram: Bilal Nazki & J.H. Bhatia, JJ. Date : 19/12/08. S.O. To 27/1/09. Oral Order. For Regr.(J)” 2. It further appears that there is an endorsement by the office viz “S.O. on 27/1/09” which is signed by various officers of the court. However, the petitioner is making a claim that the Civil Application No.1230 of 2008 was allowed by the court and the matter was fixed for final hearing on 25/2/2009 on the basis of a letter dated 19/12/2008 written by the Assistant Government Pleader, A.S. (Writ Cell), High Court, Mumbai Shri Vinay A. Sonpal. However, the Farad sheet of this court as also the original notified Board of the concerned Sheristedar of this court shows that Mr. Vinay A. : 3 : Sonpal was not appearing in the matter on that day and that Mr. V.P. Malvankar, Assistant Government Pleader was appearing in the matter on the said date. Mr. Vinay Sonpal, AGP, who is present before this court states that he had appeared in the matter and order was passed and he reported the same to the Under Secretary to the Government of Maharashtra by the letter dated 19/12/2008. However, the record of the court does not support the submission of Mr. Vinay Sonpal, AGP. Mr. V.P. Malvankar who appears in the matter today states that he does not recollect as to whether he appeared in the matter on 19/12/2008. 3. It is well settled principle of law that the record of the court and the Farad sheets of the court cannot be a subject matter of challenge. Unless there are specific orders on the Farad sheet or in a proceeding, it is inappropriate to draw any inference in respect of the orders passed by the court. It is much more so when the assignment changes because the court to which the new assignment is made is only guided by the Farad sheets and not by the reproduction and/or submissions of the counsel as to what happened and/or what transpired before the earlier bench. Therefore, the only inference which follows is that on 19/12/2008, Civil Application No. 1230 of 2008 was simply adjourned to 27/1/2009 and the case for review : 4 : made on that ground is without any substance and, therefore, the Review Petition deserves to be rejected. 4. However, we do not desire to be so technical in the matter and harsh on the petitioner so as to dismiss the Review. The only ground which the learned counsel for the petitioner is submitting before this court for expeditious disposal of the Writ Petition is that the petitioner is retiring from service on 31st May, 2010. He, therefore, submits that the matter should be disposed of prior to the date of retirement of the petitioner. The said ground has also been made out in the Civil Application. The subject matter of the Writ Petition is the service matter of the petitioner which has a chequered history. It appears that in 1998, Writ Petition No.3910 of 1998 was filed. The said Petition came to be rejected and thereafter, the matter went to the Apex Court and the SLP before the Apex Court was also rejected. It further appears that Writ Petition No.3012 of 1999 was filed by one Jayappa Bankapure which was allowed on 4th July, 2000. The petitioner contends that similar reliefs were claimed by the petitioner as had been claimed by the petitioner Jayappa Bankapure in the aforesaid Writ Petition, which were granted. In the said Writ Petition of Jayappa Bankapure, Review Petition was filed by the Government bearing No.89 of : 5 : 2001 and the said Review was rejected on 12/12/2002. The SLP was then filed before the Apex Court bearing SLP [Civil] (CC 5984/2003). The said SLP filed by the Government was also rejected. It appears that thus, the orders have attained finality in the matter of Jayappa Bankapure and that thereafter in 2006, Civil Application No.523 of 2006 in Review Petition (St) No.12290 of 2005 in Writ Petition No.3910 of 1998 was filed. In short, it means that after Jayappa Bankapure’s Petition was finalised upto the Supreme Court, the petitioner whose Petition was dismissed on 3rd August, 1998, filed Review Petition in 2005.. The said Review was disposed of on 5th May, 2006. The petitioner tried to claim benefit of the order of Jayappa Bankapure on the ground that the law as laid down in that Writ Petition be followed in his case. The fact is that the petitioner’s claim was independently considered and it was rejected. Jayappa’s case was also independently considered but allowed. Assuming for a moment that Jayappa and the petitioner were similarly situated, still the subsequent change in the law cannot be a retrospective effect unless the court makes it retrospectively applicable. Unless the judgment itself is retroactive or made retrospective, the benefit cannot be claimed. However, while considering the Review application, the court observed that this cannot be considered in the review and that the petitioner can file a separate Petition for that : 6 : purpose and since by that time, the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal was constituted, the court observed that the petitioner may file such a Petition before the said Tribunal and rejected and/or disposed of the Review Petition filed by the petitioner. Thereafter, the petitioner approached the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal and his application has been rejected by the Tribunal. 5. The above stated facts are self-speaking. What is to be noted is that when the Review Petition was disposed of allowing the petitioner to file an application before the Tribunal, the fact that the 1998 order was challenged before the Apex Court and that the SLP filed by the petitioner in 1998 had been rejected was not brought to the notice of the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal. If the said order has become final as a result of the seal of the Apex Court, the question of granting permission or saying that the petitioner can avail benefit by making separate application would not have arisen at all. Therefore, on these facts, only because the services of the petitioner are to be superannuated at a particular date and therefore, the Petition should be heard expeditiously is not a ground for grant of request for expeditious hearing. : 7 : 6. While considering an application for expeditious hearing, this court is expected to consider that as a result of keeping the Petition pending, the petitioner is put to adverse conditions and/or he is suffering under the orders of certain departments. We have perused the matter. The matter pertains to the departmental examinations and how many chances are to be given and thereafter promotions to be considered. This is a regular promotion matter and, therefore, ultimately if we find that the petitioner is entitled for promotion, the pensionary benefits by way of promotion and/or granting deemed date of promotion can be granted to the petitioner. However, that cannot be a ground for the purpose of expeditious hearing. No doubt, every employee desires that before he retires from service, his service matter should be over and he should peacefully retire, but that itself is not a ground keeping in view the huge pendency of matters before this court and the stale claim made by the petitioner because he came to this Court in 2005 and thereafter approached Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal. We have several other reasons to state, but we refrain ourselves at this stage. We only find that our observation which we have made are without making any reference to the facts so that no prejudice should be caused to the petitioner. No justifiable case for urgency is made out. We had observed restraint : 8 : while passing the impugned order, but since the petitioner desired that there should be a reasoned order, we have placed on record the reasons as to why the Civil Application is rejected. However, these observations are made only for the purpose of disposing of the Review Petition. They should not be taken as observations on merit. The petitioner is at liberty to make good his case and argue his case and satisfy the court at the final hearing as to how he is entitled to the reliefs which have been claimed in the Original Application before the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal. 7. For the reasons which we have stated above, the Review Petition is rejected. Sd/- Sd/- (D.B. BHOSALE) (S.B. MHASE, J.)