Maya Devi (Smt.) vs State of Uttarakhand and Others

B.S. Verma, J.—Heard learned Counsel of the parties and perused the record.

By means of this writ petition, petitioner has sought writ in the nature of certiorari quashing the impugned order dated 12/13th July, 2010, passed by respondent No. 3, whereby the interim seniority list has been cancelled.

The petitioner claims to have been appointed through direct recruitment on the post of Accountant on 11.04.2000 in the Agricultural Department and he is continuously working on said post. He is permanent resident of State of Uttarakhand and at the time of creation of Uttarakhand he opted for Uttarakhand but his name could not be included in the final allocation list of Uttarakhand. Subsequently, one Deelip Singh Gungiyal agreed for mutual allocation, as he wanted to go to State of U.P. and petitioner continued to work in Uttarakhand. Thereafter a tentative seniority list of accountants in Uttarakhand was prepared and circulated on 03.05.2001. Nobody raised any objection against the said seniority list and the same became final. The name of the petitioner in the final seniority list is in number 3. But persons at serial Nos. 1 and 2, Kundan Singh Bisht and Yashpal Singh Chauhan, respectively were promoted to the post of Assistant Account Officer. The claim of the petitioner is that respondent No. 3, prepared a tentative seniority list of the Accountants working in the Agricultural Department and which is wrong and she raised objections against it. Her claim is also that Kundan Singh Bisht and Yashpal Singh Chauhan were promoted on the post of Assistant Account Officer and they have retired but she has not been promoted. The department received a final seniority list of Accountants on 13.07.2010 in which the name of the petitioner figures at serial No. 46. Her claim is that this seniority list is wholly illegal, arbitrary and is liable to be set aside. Therefore, the petition has been filed for setting aside the final seniority list and to prepare fresh seniority list of Accountants in the on the date of their appointment, on the post of Accountants.

Learned Counsel for the respondents has submitted that the facts of the present case are wholly covered by the judgment of learned Division Bench of this Court, consisting of Hon''ble Rajeev Gupta, C.J. and Hon''ble J.C.S. Rawat, J., reported in 2006 (2) U.D. 439, wherein it has been held in paragraph No. 9 as under:

It is well settled principle of law that the High Court cannot lose sight of the fact that the matters of alternative remedy has nothing to do with the jurisdiction of the cases, normally the High Court should not interfere if there is an adequate efficacious alternative remedy available. If anybody approaches the High Court without availing the alternate remedy the High Court would ensure that he had made out a strong case or that there exist good ground to invoke the extraordinary jurisdiction. The rule of alternative remedy is essentially a rule of policy, convenience and discretion. When the petitioner files the petition before the High Court he should also state the reasons as to why he thought that the alternative remedy would not be efficacious. The High Court should not bypass the said Tribunal where the government servant is aggrieved by an order of the government pertaining to the service matter within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal.

In view of the above, the petitioner has an alternative remedy before the Public Service Tribunal Uttarakhand, Nainital. She is relegated to Public Service Tribunal for redressal of her grievance.

The Registry of this Court is directed to send the record of the case to the Tribunal concerned.

With the above observation, the writ petition is disposed of finally.