State Of Punjab & Anr vs Balkaran Singh

1. These appeals by special leave are by the State of Punjab and its Director of Agriculture. They challenge the judgments and decrees in three different suits filed by three officers of the Agricultural Department of the State, essentially claiming pay at enhanced scale in two of the suits and seniority over certain others in the third suit. Civil Appeal Nos. 5847 of 2005 and 5854 of 2005 go together and the issue involved in C.A. No. 5853 of 2005 is slightly different though based on the same claim. The suits were decreed by the trial court. The decrees were affirmed in appeal. The Second Appellate Court declined to interfere. Hence these appeals.

2. The respondent herein, hereinafter referred to as the plaintiff, filed Civil Suit No. 665 of 1993 on 20.12.1993 in the Court of Senior Subordinate Judge, Chandigarh praying for a declaration that the Office Order dated 13.3.1980 passed by the Director of Agriculture, Punjab in fixing the pay of the plaintiff in the scale of Rs. 940-1850/- instead of in the scale of Rs.1200-1850/- is illegal, null, void, arbitrary, without jurisdiction and against the principles of natural justice and equity, for a declaration that the plaintiff is entitled for the pay scale of Rs.1200- 1850/- as against Rs. 940-1850/-with effect from 1.1.1978 applicable to the post of Deputy Director of Agriculture and entitled to the payment of all other service benefits including yearly increments, arrears and interest thereon at the rate of 18 per cent per annum with effect from 1.1.1978 till the date of payment with costs of the suit. At the time of the suit, the plaintiff was working as a Joint Director, Agriculture and was on deputation in The Punjab Land Development and Reclamation Corporation Limited. The plaintiff was selected, according to him, to the post of Deputy Director of Agriculture. But the order of appointment produced by him and marked as Exhibit P-1 shows that the plaintiff was appointed to Punjab Agricultural Services Class-I temporarily by direct recruitment in the time scale of Rs.400-30-550/40-750/50-1250 and was posted as Deputy Director of Agriculture (Pulses), Bhatinda. The plaint proceeds on the basis that on the recommendations of the Third Pay Commission, the Government of Punjab revised the pay-scales of its employees from 1.1.1978. The pay- scale of Deputy Directors in all services was given as Rs.1200-1850/- from the old scale of Rs.400-1250/-. When this decision to revise the pay-scale was brought to the notice of the Director of Agriculture, he found that in the Agricultural Department there was no post of Deputy Director as such and that the appointment of all those working as Deputy Directors was only to Punjab Agricultural Service Class-I and that the scale of pay of Class-I officers in the original scale of Rs.400-1250/- had been enhanced only to Rs. 940-1850/-. He therefore made an endorsement that the revised scale of pay of Deputy Directors in the Agricultural Department, they being officers of Class-I was only Rs. 940-1850/- and consequently that amount alone was payable. It may be noted that this endorsement was made as early as on 13.3.1980. The plaintiff was being paid salary only at that scale from 1.1.1978. The plaintiff came to Court challenging that order only on 20.12.1993, more than 12 years after the order or endorsement. The case of the plaintiff was that in the case of one Mewa Singh, who was also a Deputy Director, the Court had passed a decree in the year 1991 declaring him entitled to the pay-scale of Rs.1200-1850/- and when that was done and the State accepted the said decision and paid Mewa Singh, the plaintiff issued a notice under Section 80 of the Code of Civil Procedure and that notice not having been responded to by the defendants, he was filing the suit. It is appropriate to refer to paragraph 9 of the plaint in this connection. The plaintiff pleaded:

3. As noticed, the claim of plaintiff was that he had been appointed as a Deputy Director even initially and the revised scale of pay of Deputy Directors had been shown in the concerned Order as Rs.1200-1850/- and consequently, he is entitled to salary at that scale from 1.1.1978 as per the recommendations of the Third Pay Commission accepted by the State of Punjab and brought into effect.

4. The defendants filed a written statement denying the claim of the plaintiff that he was appointed as a Deputy Director. It was pointed out with reference to the Order of appointment relied on by the plaintiff himself, that he was temporarily appointed to the post of Punjab Agricultural Service Class-I officer, on a scale of pay of Rs.400-1250/- and that scale had been revised with effect from 1.1.1978 only to Rs. 940-1850/- and hence the plaintiff was not entitled to the higher scale of pay as claimed by him. It was further pleaded that the post of Deputy Director in which the plaintiff was intermittently working was only an interchangeable post manned by Class-I officers in the Punjab Agricultural Service. It was also pleaded that going by Rule 11 of the Punjab Agricultural Service (Class-I) Rules, 1974, the position of Deputy Director was not a promotion post for a Class-I Officer and consequently the claim of the appellant that he was holding a post higher than that of a Class-I officer, was untenable. It was an interchangeable post that he was holding and he had himself worked as Class-I officer during his career and had also occasionally worked as Deputy Director. It was pleaded that the decision in Mewa Singh's case had no application and could not be made use of for grant reliefs to the plaintiff. It was also specifically pleaded that the suit was barred by limitation, the cause of action for the relief of declaration having arisen as early as on 13.3.1980 and the suit having been filed only on 20.12.1993. It was also pleaded that no decree could be granted for so-called arrears from 1.1.1978 as claimed in the plaint. We may incidentally notice that the plaintiff has not quantified or valued any arrears as due to him.

5. The facts of this case are also on a par with the litigation giving rise to C.A. No. 5847 of 2005. Here, the plaintiff, who was appointed as a Class-II officer was promoted as Class-I Officer on a scale of pay of Rs.400- 1250/- by Order dated 10.6.1977 and was posted as Deputy Director, Agriculture (I.C.D.P.), Mukhtasar. The Civil Suit No. 894 of 1993 was filed on 25.11.1993. The prayers in the plaint are identical with the ones in Civil Suit No. 665 of 1993 giving rise to C.A. No. 5847 of 2005. The claim is also made on the same basis. The suit was resisted on the same lines by the defendants. The question that has to be tackled herein is the same as the one arising in C.A. No. 5847 of 2005 including the question of limitation and hence no separate discussion is needed.

6. The respondent- plaintiff filed Civil Suit No. 82 of 1993 on 6.5.1993 praying for a declaration that he was legally entitled to be placed at Serial No. 12 instead of at Serial No. 20 in the seniority list prepared in the year 1980 of the Punjab Agricultural Service Class-I (Administrative) officers of the Agricultural Department issued by the Punjab Government on 26.2.1980 and for a mandatory injunction directing the defendant State of Punjab, to fix the seniority of the plaintiff at Serial No. 12 in the Seniority List of Class-I Officers of the Agricultural Department prepared in the year 1980 and granting the plaintiff proforma promotions in accordance with his actual seniority in the Department with retrospective effect after placing him at Serial No. 12 in the Seniority List. He also prayed for a mandatory injunction directing the defendant to release the arrears of his pay and emoluments along with interest at the rate of 18 per cent per annum from the dates when they became due till their actual recovery in view of his denied promotions to which he was legally entitled to and also to grant him all the service benefits and arrears from the back date to which he was found legally entitled to in the facts and circumstances of the case.

7. Subsequently, the plaint was amended and the State of Punjab, the original Defendant was ranked as Defendant No.1 and four other officers in the Agricultural Department were impleaded as Defendants 2 to 5. One officer Sukhdev Singh, who was shown as senior and promoted earlier and with reference to whom a specific relief was claimed was not impleaded apparently on the basis that he had since retired. The plaintiff also included in the amended plaint a further prayer as regards the seniority list of the years 1984 and 1985 and seeking the placing of the plaintiff at Serial No. 15 instead of at Serial No. 21.

8. In addition to the factual position that was identical with the other two suits, in that the plaintiff was also recruited initially only as a Class-I officer in the Punjab Agricultural Service, one further fact that was relied on by the plaintiff was that though he had been placed in the revised scale of pay at Rs.940-1850/-, he had filed a suit being Civil Suit No.461 of 1991 challenging the order fixing his revised scale of pay of Rs.940-1850/- and claiming that he was entitled to arrears of pay at the scale of Rs. 1200- 1850/- and the same was decreed in his favour, upholding his prayer and directing that payment of salary including arrears be paid to him in the scale of Rs.1200-1850/- and that the said decision had become final. In view of the said decision, it was the contention of the plaintiff that the first defendant could not deny the seniority that would be due to him based on the higher pay thus drawn by him as against the officers who were placed in a lower scale of pay.

11. In all the three suits, the trial court raised issues as to whether the respective plaintiff would be entitled to the revised scale of pay of Rs.1200-1850/- instead of at Rs.940- 1850/- and whether the suits were barred by limitation. In the suits giving rise to C.A. No. 5847 of 2005 and C.A. No. 5454 of 2005, the trial court held that in view of the letter sanctioning the revised pay scale indicating the scale of pay of Deputy Directors as Rs.1200-1850/-, the endorsement of the Director of Agriculture that the revised scale of pay of Rs.940-1850/- alone was payable was wrong. The court shut its eyes to the contention that the plaintiffs were only recruited as Punjab Agricultural Service Class-I officers on a scale of pay of Rs.400-1250/- and the revised scale for that pay was only Rs.940-1850/- and that the post of Deputy Director held by the plaintiffs was an interchangeable post and the plaintiffs themselves had held the post of Class-I officers during all these years alternately and that in the light of Rule 11 of the relevant rules, the plaintiffs could not be considered to be holding any promotional post. The trial court purported to rely upon the decision in Civil Suit No. 461 of 1991 and the fact that the State was forced to concede the scale of pay of Rs.1200-1850/- to Mewa Singh, the plaintiff therein, to hold that all those officers of Class-I who at one time or the other worked as Deputy Directors, would be entitled to the scale of pay of Rs.1200-1850/-. It was not borne in mind that Civil Suit No. 461 of 1991 was not a representative action, though of course it related to an officer similarly situated and the decision in that suit might have evidentiary value but could not be understood as barring a proper enquiry into the contentions by the trial court. On the issue of limitation, the trial court stated that the relief of declaration was not barred by limitation because the right to seek the fixation of pay as per rules could not be held to be barred by limitation presumably on the ground that it was a recurring cause of action. The issue was disposed of in a most unsatisfactory and cursory fashion by the trial court even without advertence to the relevant article of the Limitation Act. In the third suit, the trial court relied entirely on the earlier decree in Civil Suit No. 461 of 1991 and proceeded to upset the seniority list of 1980 in the suit of the year 1993 by a judgment dated 7.8.1997 and granted a declaration that Mewa Singh, the plaintiff therein, is entitled to be placed at Serial No.12 instead of at Serial No. 20 in the seniority list issued on 26.2.1980 and at Serial No. 15 instead of at Serial No. 21 in the seniority list prepared in the year 1984-85. The State was directed to consider the case of the plaintiff for fixation of seniority as claimed by the plaintiff. In the event of grant of the said seniority, it was directed that the plaintiff would be entitled to all the benefits of service. He shall be posted as per the seniority. An order was to be passed within two months from the date of the decree.

20. In the view we have taken, the argument of the plaintiff based on the Punjab Horticultural Service (Class-I) Rules, 1990, has no substance. Those rules cannot have any application to the question involved here. The result of this discussion would be that the decrees granted by the courts below in the two suits, i.e., Civil Suit No. 665 of 1993 and Civil Suit No. 894 of 1993 are unsustainable in law and the decrees deserve to be reversed.

21. Coming to the third suit, Civil Suit No. 82 of 2003, we have found that the prayer in the suit filed on 6.5.1993 is to set at naught the seniority lists published in the year 1980 and in the year 1984. On the face of it, the prayer for declaration is barred by limitation. The suit is governed by Article 58 of the Limitation Act and the impact of the publication of the seniority list was felt by the plaintiff on the issue of that list and when others were placed above him. The cause of action therefore arose in 1980 and in 1984.

26. In the result, these appeals are allowed; the judgments and decrees granted by the courts below are set aside and all the three suits are dismissed with costs in the trial court. In the circumstances, the parties are directed to suffer their respective costs in the first appellate court, in the second appellate court and in this Court.