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Madhya Pradesh High Court · body

2007 DIGILAW 1258 (MP)

M. L. GOLE v. M. P. ELECTRICITY BOARD

2007-12-06

R.S.JHA

body2007
Judgment ( 1. ) THE petitioner has filed this petition praying for quashing communication dated 6-6-2000 by which his representation against grant of time bound promotion been rejected as well as communication dated 11-8-2000 by which his representation against adverse remarks for the period ending 31-3-1999 has been rejected and has further prayed that he be granted the benefit of the time bound promotion scheme on the post of Assistant Engineer with effect from 7-10-1999 and place him just below one Shri Kamlesh Kumar Dubey in the seniority list. ( 2. ) THE case of the petitioner is that he was initially appointed as a Diploma trainee in the year 15-3-1978 and was thereafter regularized on the post of junior Engineer on 15-6-1979 in the establishment of the respondents. On 7-5-1999, the respondent/board issued and published a time bound promotion scheme which provided for grant of benefit to such Junior Engineers who had completed 15 years of service by giving them promotion on the post of Assistant engineer subject to their fulfilment of the criteria prescribed for promotion on the post of Assistant Engineer. It is further provided in the said scheme that this promotion would only entitle the person concerned to designation and benefits but his duties and function would remain that of Junior Engineer and that he would be granted promotion by absorption on the post of Assistant Engineer as and when vacancies in that cadre arise. ( 3. ) IT is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner completed 15 years of service in the year 1994, however, his case along with others for grant of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme was considered in the Departmental Promotion Committee which met in the year 1999. In the meanwhile, the petitioner had been served with an adverse entry for the period 1998-1999 and was graded d in the said year and in view of the promotion criteria prevailing in the department, the petitioner was denied the benefit of the time bound promotion scheme as he was not found fit by the Committee on account of the fact that he had been awarded d grade in the year 1998-99. ( 4. ) THE petitioner filed a representation against the denial of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme as well as another representation against the adverse entry relating to the period 1998-99. ( 4. ) THE petitioner filed a representation against the denial of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme as well as another representation against the adverse entry relating to the period 1998-99. Both the said representations have been rejected vide impugned orders dated 6-6-2000 and 11-8-2000 respectively and, therefore, the petitioner has approached this Court by filing the present petition. ( 5. ) IT is submitted by the learned counsel for the petitioner that as per the time bound promotion scheme the petitioner had completed 15 years of service in the year 1994 and, therefore, his service record of the 5 years preceding 1994 should have been considered for the purposes of ascertaining his fitment for grant of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme whereas the respondents have considered his service record of the period of 5 years preceding the date on which the Departmental Promotion Committee met i. e. 5 years preceding the year 1999, as a result of which the d grade adverse entry awarded to him in the year 1998-99 was taken into consideration resulting in denial of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme to the petitioner. The second contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the adverse entry awarded to the petitioner was totally unjustified and the impugned order rejecting his representation against the said adverse entry is non-speaking one and, therefore, the adverse entry as well as the rejection deserves to be set aside. ( 6. ) CLAUSES 1 and 3 of the time bound promotion scheme dated 7-5-1999 filed as Annexure P-2, which are relevant for the purpose of the present petition read as under :- "1. A Junior Engineer (JE) who has completed 15 years of service including training period should be promoted to the post of Assistant engineer (AE) subject to fulfilment of criteria of promotion. 3. In the event of vacancies arising at the level of AE either on account of promotion/retirement or on creation of posts, he would be absorbed against the regular vacancies of AE. " ( 7. ) FROM a perusal of the above it is apparent that a Junior Engineer on completion of 15 years of service including training period is entitled to grant of promotion on the post of Assistant Engineer subject to his fulfilling the criteria of promotion. " ( 7. ) FROM a perusal of the above it is apparent that a Junior Engineer on completion of 15 years of service including training period is entitled to grant of promotion on the post of Assistant Engineer subject to his fulfilling the criteria of promotion. The criteria prescribed for promotion has been filed by the respondents along with the return as Annexures R-2 and R-3. Paragraph 3 of the circular dated 10-3-1975 filed by the respondents as Annexure R-2 prescribes the procedure to be followed for promotion and lays down that the cases of all eligible candidates should be considered for promotion by reviewing their confidential reports for the preceding 5 years and that out of five years confidential Report, the candidates must have minimum grading of 3 b and 2 c for becoming eligible for promotion to the next higher post. Annexure R-3 dated 15-4-1996 by which the Madhya Pradesh State Electricity Board (General service) Regulations, 1952 have been amended provides that minimum service for promotion to the higher grade is 5 years and the minimum grading for grant of promotion is 3 b and 2 c in the last 5 years. The words "preceding 5 years" mentioned in Annexure R-2 and the words "last 5 years" mentioned in the minimum Grading in Annual Confidential Report column of Annexure R-3 are clear indicators of the fact that the authorities are required to consider the record of the past 5 years immediately preceding the date on which the Departmental promotion Committee is convened for considering cases of promotion and by no stretch of imagination can it be held to mean the period of 5 years preceding the date the person becomes eligible for grant of promotion on completing 15 years of service. I am inclined to say so as neither promotion nor the benefit under the time bound scheme can be claimed or granted as of right on completing the requisite number of years of service but can be awarded only in case the employee is found fit by the Departmental Promotion Committee as is evident from a perusal of Paragraph 1 of Annexure R-2 filed by the petitioner which clearly states in so many words, that the same procedure which is prescribed for making promotions would be applicable for the purpose of grant of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme. ( 8. ( 8. ) IN view of the above, I find no merit in the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the record of the preceding five years that can be considered for the grant of benefit under the time bound promotion scheme relates to and is restricted to a period of five years preceding the date the person completes fifteen years of service even though his case is considered subsequent to the completion of the said period and I am of the considered opinion that the consideration of the record of the preceding five years clearly means five years preceding the date on which the departmental promotion committee is convened. ( 9. ) THE next contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the impugned order dated 11-8-2000 rejecting the petitioners representation against the adverse remarks recorded for the period 1998-99 deserves to be quashed as no reasons whatsoever have been mentioned therein. ( 10. ) APPARENTLY, the adverse remarks for the relevant period were communicated to the petitioner vide communication dated 2-6-1999 and the petitioner was given due opportunity represent against the said adverse entries. The petitioner vide its detailed representation dated 8-5-2000 approached the authorities for setting aside the said adverse entries and the authorities placed the representation of the petitioner before the Regional Review Committee constituted as per the regulations and instructions prevailing in the establishment of the respondents which has been filed by the petitioner along with the petition as annexure P-13. The Review Committee duly examined the petitioners representation and submitted its recommendations to the effect that the adverse remarks deserve to be maintained. The procedure for examination of representation against adverse entries that has been provided in the establishment of the respondents is that a Review Committee constituted by the Board examines the representation and conveys its decision to the head of the office under whom the employee is working and, therefore, apparently the representation of the petitioner was not considered by any individual officer or authority and rejected without assigning any reason, as alleged by the petitioner, but was placed before the review Committee. The petitioner has not made any allegations to the effect the prescribed procedure for dealing with the representation was not followed or that all the members of the committee were either biased or were in any other way motivated against the petitioner and, therefore, in the circumstances, I am of the considered opinion that a community decision by a Review Committee constituted as per the procedure prescribed cannot be found fault with specifically when it has in so many words examined the opinion of the reporting authority along with the service record of the petitioner and found no fault with the adverse entries recorded by them and has in fact agreed with the adverse remarks recorded in the confidential report for the period ending 30-3-1999. ( 11. ) IN view of the above, I do not find any merit in the petition which is accordingly dismissed. Petition dismissed.