Inder Jeet Khurana À Appellant vs State Of Haryana & Ors. À Respondents

Sub-rule (2) provides that appointment by promotion shall be made on seniority-cum-merit.

4. Rule 7 relates to qualifications and provides that no person shall be appointed to any post in the service, unless he possesses the qualifications and experience specified in column 3 of Appendix B to the Rules in the case of direct recruitment, and those specified in column 4 of the aforesaid Appendix in the case of persons appointed other than by direct recruitment. Column 4 of Appendix B prescribes the following experience for appointment to the post of 'Tehsildar' by promotion and transfer :

6. The State Government determined the ratio for sharing the vacancies as 50% for Ziledars from Irrigation Department and 50% for other four categories. The State Government also constituted a Three Member Committee consisting of Commissioner, Ambala Division as Chairman and Joint Secretary, Revenue and Director, Land Records as members, for recommending the names of suitable candidates for appointment as 'B' Class Tehsildars from the category of officials specified in Rule 9(1)(b)(iii) by transfer. The government also fixed the following procedure for ascertaining the merit : maximum 75 marks for evaluation of five latest Annual Confidential Reports, and 25 marks for interview (overall suitability), in all 100 marks. It was decided that the marks for Confidential Reports, would be calculated by assigning 15, 12.5 and 10 marks per year, respectively, for the grading of 'outstanding', 'very good' and 'good' in the ACRs. The Committee decided on the following break-up for assigning the interview marks : 5 marks for academic qualification, 5 marks for outstanding achievement in sports and other extra curricular activities, 5 marks for service experience and 10 marks for general knowledge, knowledge of Revenue work and working of Revenue Department.

7. The computation of marks for ACRs, being a mechanical exercise of Tabulation, the Committed directed the office of the Financial Commissioner to prepare the same. The Committee held interview and submitted a Report dated 24.8.1992 enclosing therewith the award list of interview marks. Thereafter, final consolidated marks list was prepared. We extract below the marks of the selected candidates and the appellants from out of the said list :

of some other candidate with the same name were considered instead of considering his ACRs. Lastly, the marks for interview (overall suitability) were not properly calculated in his case.

21. The appellant next contended that he had a postgraduate qualification of MA and a B.Ed. Degree, and he had also participated in sports (first in the State Level Kabaddi competition) and other extra-curricular activities (Fancy Dress competition in 1972-73). It is alleged that appropriate marks were not given for the educational qualification and sports and extra- curricular activities). This contention is also without merit. The guidelines in regard to interview show that out of the 25 marks, 5 marks were earmarked for academic qualifications. In regard to the basic qualification of a Degree, the candidates who secured first class were given 3 marks, those who secured second class were given 2 marks and other graduates were not entitled to any mark. Persons with postgraduate degree or LL.B. were entitled to additional 2 marks. In this case, the appellant apparently did not have first class or second class but he had a post-graduate degree. The result- sheet of Ziledars prepared by the Committee shows that the appellant was given 2 marks for his post-graduate qualification, 1 mark for experience, 2 marks for outstanding achievements (sports etc.) and 6 marks for overall performance in all, 11 marks. It is, thus, seen that his degrees as also his sports and other activities, were duly taken note of and appropriate marks awarded. The contention that the appellant was not given proper marks in interview is, thus, without merit.

Re : Contention (iv) [Re : CA No.3874/2001] :

24. We are also informed that during the pendency of this appeal, the appellant has retired and, therefore, the question of considering his case for appointment as Tahsildar by transfer, would not arise. In view of the above, it is unnecessary to consider the contentions raised by the appellant with reference to the validity of appointment of respondents 2 to 7 as Tehsildars. In fact, we have considered and rejected those contentions while considering the common contentions.

25. Inder Jeet Khurana, the appellant, has also challenged the selection of Jatinder Kumar and Mam Chand, both Assistant Superintendents, as Tahsildars, on the ground that they did not possess the required minimum experience of 5 years when their names were recommended by the concerned Department and, therefore, they could not have been selected. This is resisted on the ground that the Government had relaxed the requirement relating to experience in their cases in exercise of power under Rule 18. It is, however, unnecessary to examine this contention as neither Jatinder Kumar nor Mam Chand is from the category of 'Ziledars' but are from the category of 'Assistant Superintendents'. As noticed above, it was decided that 50% of the posts of Tahsildars will be filled by transfer from the category of 'Ziledars' and remaining 50% from other categories belonging to the Revenue Department. The appellants, who are Ziledars, were not affected by the selection of those candidates falling under the other categories, can have no legitimate grievance on that behalf.

Conclusion :

26. In view of the rejection of all contentions, these appeals are dismissed as having no merit. Parties to bear their respective costs.