Anil Chandra & Ors vs Radha Krishna Gaur & Ors

prior to the enforcement of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007 shall not be disturbed in pursuance of the Rules by way of the aforesaid impugned order.

3. The relevant facts leading to the filing of these appeals may be summarized as under: -

11. Further, after the passing of aforesaid judgment by the Constitution Bench, the U.P. Government issued a Notification on 14th of September, 2007 by which the U. P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007, were issued which runs as under :

12. After the issuance of the aforesaid notification, the State Government vide letter dated 3rd of October, 2007 directed the various Development Authorities including the appellants to take necessary action in accordance with the Notification dated 14th of September, 2007 and according to Section 92 of the U. P. Avas Evam Vikas Parishad Adhiniyam, 1965, the State Government will have control over the Board and other Local authorities and the State Government may give the board such directions which in its opinion are necessary or expedient for carrying out the purpose of the Act, and it shall be the duty of the Board to comply with such directions.

16. Respondents who were working on the post of Superintending Engineers, Executive Engineers and Assistant Engineers in U.P. Jal Nigam, aggrieved by the aforesaid Seniority List, filed a Writ Petition assailing the validity of the U. P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007, by which Rule 8-A has been inserted in the U. P. Government Servants Seniority Rules, 1991 and by virtue of the aforesaid Rules, the Government Servants belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would be entitled to consequential seniority on accelerated promotion given to them through roster/rule of reservation. In the aforesaid Writ Petition, the respondents further assailed the validity of the Notification dated 14th of September, 2007 of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007 made effective from 17th of June, 1995. They also challenged the order dated 19th of October, 2007 by which the aforesaid Notification dated 14th of September, 2007 was adopted. The respondents also challenged the aforesaid tentative Seniority List dated 3rd of November, 2007: issued by the U.P. Jal Nigam in furtherance of the Notification.

18. Further in the meantime, some of the Executive Engineers also filed a Writ Petition No.81/2008 thereby challenging the consequential validity of Rule 8-A of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007. In the present writ petition, the Division Bench of the High Court, relying upon the order passed by the High Court in the earlier writ petition No.1389 (SB) of 2007, issued notice and granted relief and provided that the seniority of the appellants therein as existing prior to the enforcement of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007, shall not be disturbed in pursuance of these rules. Subsequently, the U.P. Avas Evam Vikas parishad, Lucknow, which was a party in the aforesaid writ petition, aggrieved by the aforesaid interim order dated 17th of January, 2008, filed a Special Leave Petition (c) No. 3097 of 2008 before this Court challenging the aforesaid interim order of the High Court. This Court, vide order dated 22nd of February, 2008, granted leave and allowed the aforesaid appeal filed by the Parishad to the extent that the interim order passed by the High Court was set aside and requested the High Court to dispose of the writ petition preferably within two months from the date of the communication of the order. The appellants, on coming to know about the passing of the aforesaid order, filed an application for impleadment and the said application was numbered as C.M. Application No.189180 of 2008. In the said application, it was contended that the appellants were necessary and affected parties and yet they were not arrayed as respondents in the aforesaid writ petition. It was also contended that any order passed in the aforesaid writ petition was going to affect the rights of the present appellants. Accordingly, they prayed to be impleaded as respondent Nos. 4 to 8 in the array of the parties. Further on 5th of March, 2008, the aforesaid impleadment application came up for hearing before the High Court and the High Court on that date allowed the impleadment application filed by the appellants. Hence, on 3rd of April, 2008, the present special leave petition was filed.

17. The aforesaid Writ Petition No.- 1496 (S/B) of 2007 came up for hearing before a Division Bench of the High Court of Allahabad, Lucknow Bench, Lucknow. The High Court directed the aforesaid Writ Petition to be tagged with Writ Petition No. 1389 (SB) of 2007 pending in the High Court. However, the Division Bench, following the reasons mentioned in the order passed in Writ Petition No. 1389(S/B) of 2007, by an interim order, directed that the seniority of the respondents as existing prior to the enforcement of the U.P. Government Servants Seniority (3rd Amendment) Rules, 2007 shall not be disturbed in pursuance of the Rules.

21. In the light of the reasons above-mentioned, we are of the view that the High Court was fully justified in granted the present interim order and there is no infirmity in the same.

22. Since the interim order passed by the High Court, which has not been interfered with by us in this judgment, we make it clear that the grant of interim order and any observation made by the High Court while granting interim order and any observations made by us in this order shall not influence the High Court to decide the writ petition on merits and the High Court shall not be influenced by any of the observations made by us in this order.

23. There is one another aspect of this matter. These appeals have been filed, as noted herein earlier, against an interim order passed by the High Court. It appears that the main writ petition, with which the present writ application has been tagged by the High Court, has already been taken up for hearing, which is already heard in part. Such being the position at this stage, it would not be appropriate for us to interfere with the impugned order passed by the High Court at this stage when the writ petition itself can be decided within a very short time.

24. Considering the importance of the present dispute between the parties, we are of the view that the High Court shall take efforts to decide the writ petitions at an early date and dispose of the same within six months from the date of supply of a copy of this order to it.

25. The appeals are thus dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.