Dogar Chand and Others vs State of Himachal Pradesh and Others

Kurian Joseph, C.J.—The petition has been filed with the following prayers:

i) That the seniority list of Head Teachers as it stood on 28.2.1995 dated 4.3.1996 be set aside and quashed. (Seniority list is available with Respondent No. 3.)

(ii) The Annexures A-3 and A-4, being illegal and unconstitutional deserve to be set aside and quashed as the Juniors to the applicants, have been promoted to the post of Centre Head Teachers.

(iii) Annexures A-5 to A-8, be set aside as the directions given for the preparation of separate seniority lists of Head Teachers and Centre Heads Teacher is illegal and unconstitutional.

(iv) That the Respondent No. 3 may be directed not to promoted any junior official to the post of Centre Head Teachers as per information called for vide Annexure A-7, till the decision of present petition.

(v) That the Respondents be directed that the applicants be promoted to the post of Centre Head Teacher from the dates the Respondents No. 4 to 7 have been promoted to the post of Centre Head Teachers, and all the due consequential benefits from the due date alongwith arrears be paid to the applicants.

In the reply furnished on behalf of Respondents No. 1 to 3, it is stated as follows:

That the applicants have filed the instant OA for maintaining their seniority position as in the JBT cadre even through they have not joined on promotional posts of Head Teachers when offered to them in the year 1987 onward by the Respondent number 3 and they claim that that Respondent number 4 to 7 be kept junior to them which is not only wrong but a baseless claim keeping in view the various instructions and provisions of Service Rules and their Application should fail on this ground.

That the applicants claim to be JBT teachers, with telling it to this Hon''ble Court that this Scale of JSTC has been allowed to them on account of their higher qualifications keeping in view the instructions of the State Finance Department given in their letter of dated 27.9.1979. They are actually not JSTC teachers but working on JBT posts even though they had been allowed the higher pay scale by virtue of their qualifications as given by the State from time to time and therefore even these submissions have no force to claim seniority above the Respondents number 4 to 7 because they were JBTs and promoted as Head Teachers from that very cadre.

That the applicants have woken after a deep slumber of more than 10 years when they were given the promotion s as Head Teachers and they did not join at that time and therefore this is all an afterthought for; seniority without any base and their Application deserves dismissal on this ground too.

That as per their seniority position, the Applicants were promoted as Head Teachers according to their turn by Respondent number 3 but they did not avail of the same for the reasons best known to them and those who had joined as Head Teachers had naturally become senior to them. The JBT Teachers have presently there channels of promotions i.e. Head Teachers, Centre Head Teachers and Block Primary Education Officers. There are separate set of R&P Rules for JBTs/Head Teachers/Centre Head Teachers and Block Primacy Education Officers and all posts are filled in a sper their seniority in respective cadres by applying 40 point roster. Thus the Application of the Applicant has no substance at all and the same is prayed to be dismissed in limine.

In case the Petitioner still has any surviving grievance with regard to the factual and legal position it will be certainly open to him to approach the first Respondent in which case the said Respondent will look into the matter and take appropriate action in accordance with law and justice and appropriate orders thereon shall be passed within four months.

With these observations the writ petition is disposed of so also the pending application(s), if any.