| Headnote |
Defence Service—Temporary Clerks and Extra Temporary clerks—Fixation of seniority—Constitutionality of order—Constitution of India, Arts. 14, 16(1), 32.The petitioner was employed by the Ministry of Defence in 1942 as an Extra Temporary Establishment Clerk. As a result of certain orders of the Government, there was an amalgamation of the services known as non-industrial staff in the Extra Temporary Establishment with those in another parallel service known as the Temporary Establishment, The petitioner contended in the petition that while Extra Temporary Clerks and the Temporary Clerks possessed the same qualifications, grade for grade, discharged the same duties and were governed by substantially similar service conditions, under the order of the Government dated April 20, 1955, a Temporary Clerk was given the right to have his seniority based on the length of his actual service, but the case of Extra Temporary Clerks like the petitioner, though in service since 1942, the entire service was not taken into account in fixing the seniority in the amalgamated roll and only half the period between 1942 and 1949 was taken into consideration. The petitioner contended that persons who entered service long after him as Temporary Clerks had been given places of seniority above him. The result was that they became entitled to be promoted to higher grades much earlier than the petitioner. That applied not only to the petitioner but also to the entire class of Extra Temporary Clerks, The petitioner contended that there was no valid or reasonable basis for the discriminatory treatment of one set of employees as against another. The order was violative of the equal protection guaranteed by Art. 14 and the guarantee of equal opportunity for employment guaranteed by Art. 16(1), of the Constitution. The petitioner challenged the. constitutional validity of the order dated April 20, 1955, and prayed for a declaration that his seniority be computed without reference to the said order.Held, that the two services had no common origin, but were recruited on different bases on different rates of pay and conditions of service. Even among the members of the two parallel services, there had been great disparities in rates of pay and condition of service. The two Services had been unified within each group by separate orders passed in 1945 and 1946. As a result of the changes brought about by these two orders in these two groups, a substantial amount of uniformity in the conditions of service of each group, compared with the other, had also been achieved. An attempt had been made to bring into a common roll the members of the two Services by the communication dated August 14, 1946, but that communication was cancelled on February 15, 1947, Before August 19, 1949, the Temporary Clerks held their employment as against sanctioned posts. The Extra Temporary Clerks were ad hoc employees recruited on a temporary basis and not against any sanctioned post, whether permanent or temporary. On the date of the amalgamation when the services of the Extra Temporary Clerks were regularised and they were brought to a, common establishment, the position was that whereas the Temporary Clerks along with the permanent establishment were members of the ISP or IPE, the Extra Temporary Clerks did not fall within that category, and were made part of it only from and after August 1, 1949, under the order dated August 19, 1949. While the Temporary Clerks could claim to have been in the same service from even before August 1, 1949, the Extra Temporary Clerks could claim to belong to that service only from and after August 1, 1949. There was no express provision providing for a common basis of seniority based on length of service of the personnel falling under two groups and there was no intention of providing a common rule for determining the seniority. The petitioner could not claim that any rights regarding seniority which he possessed on the date when the Constitution came into force, were, in any way, restricted or denied to him by the order of April 20, 1955. The said order was really a concession in favour of the petitioner and not any detraction from the right possessed by him at the time of the commencement of the Constitution. There was no basis for the contention that any fundamental right of the petitioner guaranteed under Article 14 or 16 (1) had been violated. Actually, the position of the petitioner had improved and he was given a limited amount of seniority by the impugned order as compared to the rights he possessed on January 26, 1950. The impugned order really conferred upon him larger rights than he previously possessed. The writ petition was dismissed. |
