CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 41334 134 of 1984.
From the Judgment and Order dated 5.3.1982 of the Delhi High Court in L.P.A. No. 125 and 115 of 1981.
Ashok Mahajan, G.D. Gupta and R. Venkataramani for the Appellants.
Anil Dev Singh, Mrs. Indra Sawhney, Mrs. Sushma Suri and C.V.S. Rao for the Respondents. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
K. JAGANNATHA SHETTY, J. These two appeals by special leave raise the question of determination of seniority of the appellants in the cadre of Lower Division Clerks. The appeals are preferred against the judgment of the High Court of Delhi dated March 5, 1982 in LPA No. 125 of 1981.
The appellants were originally recruited as Civilian School Masters or L.D.Cs., Leading Hand (Technical), etc. either in the Lower Defence Installations comprising Ordnance Factories, Ordnance Depots, Workshops, Regimental Centres, Units, Command Headquarters, etc. under the control of Army Headquarters, New Delhi. Some of the appellants were declared as surplus in those establishments and they came to be posted/transferred to the Armed Forces Headquarters and inter-service organisations as LDCs. Their posting/transfer was done in the public interest. They joined the service in the Armed Force Headquarters on various dates between 1960 to 1964. Some of them were later promoted as Upper Division Clerks. While they were thus continuing in service, rules flamed under proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution known as "The Armed Forces Headquarters Clerical Service Rules, 1968 ("The Rules")" were brought into force with effect from March 1, 1968. The Rules inter alia, provide that the seniority in the service shall be determined on the basis of date of confirmation. Prior to the coming into force of the Rules, the seniority in the cadre of service was required to be determined on the basis of length of service. It was so laid down by several official memorandums of the Government or that of the Defence Ministry. After the Rules came into force, the seniority of the appellants was sought to be disturbed on the basis of confirmation as prescribed under the Rules. The appellants, therefore, moved the High Court of Delhi under Article 226 of the Constitution contending inter alia, that length of service should be the basis of inter-se seniority. They also raised some other questions with which we are not concerned. The learned single Judge accepted the claim of the appellants and made an order dated April 8, 1981. The relevant portion of the order runs as follows:
"It is not disputed by the respond-
ents that the only principle of seniority laid
down by various Memoranda was the principle of
seniority laid down by various Memoranda was
the principle of length of service. No memo-
randa of Administrative Instructions are
brought to my notice by
the respondents, where any other principle has
been laid down. The petitioners, in all the
three petitioners were originally in common
LDC cadre and are in the common cadre of
U.D.C. now. It cannot be said that some of
them (Writ Petition No. 423 of 1975) will all
be governed by the principles of length of
service and no others because they have not
expressly stated that their seniority should
be fixed on the principles of length of serv-
ice. It may be noted that in 1959 the Home
Ministry issued general principles of seniori-
ty to be followed in all Government services
except where a service follows a different set
of principles. The said Memorandum lays down
that seniority of all Government employees,
employed subsequent to the issuance of the
said Memoranda, will be decided on the basis
of the date of confirmation. It further lays
down that all confirmed employees would be
treated senior to the non-confirmed employees.
The petitioners would have been ordinarily
governed by these principles since they joined
the Armed Forces on transfer after 1959. But
the Ministry of Defence preferred to continue
the principles of length of service (which
they had been following prior to 1959), even
after the 1959 Memorandum came into operation.
The 1963 Memorandum of the Defence Ministry
incorporated the said principles and all
Memoranda issued thereafter reiterated the
principles of length of service. In these
circumstances, the contention of respondents
cannot be accepted. The seniority of the peti-
tioners shall be decided by the principle of
length of service, that is, their date of
joining the Army Headquarters as LDCs. Of
course, some of them entitled to additional
benefit of past service under the said Memo-
randum were given that benefit. Since this is
the question raised in Civil Writ Petition No.
423/1975, it must succeed."
Being aggrieved by the above decision, the Union of India preferred an Appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court. The Division Bench reversed the above view holding that the seniority of the appellants must fall to be determined on the basis of confirmation as prescribed by the Rules and not on the length of service. The view taken by the Division Bench has been challenged in these appeals.
We have perused the judgment of the Division Bench and also considered the submissions of the parties. The view taken by the Division Bench appears to be erroneous. The Rules, no doubt provide that all persons substantially appointed to a grade shall rank senior to those holding officiating appointments in the grade. But the Rules have no retrospective effect. It could not impair the existing rights of officials who were appointed long prior to the Rules came into force. The office memorandums to which learned single Judge has referred in detail and which we have extracted above clearly laid down that length of service should be the guiding principle of arranging the inter-se seniority of officials. The appellants being governed by those memorandums had the fight to have their seniority determined accordingly before the Rules came into force. That being their right, the Rules cannot take it away to their prejudice. The Division Bench was, therefore, clearly in error in directing that the seniority shall follow their respective confirmations.
In construing similar office memorandums in a different context, this is what this Court has observed in Union of India v. M. Ravi Varma & Anr., [1972] 2 SCR 992 at 1002:
"As the said Office Memorandum has,
except in certain cases with which we are not
concerned, applied the rule of seniority
contained in the Annexure thereto only to
employees appointed after the date of that
Memorandum, there is no escape from the con-
clusion that the seniority of Ganapathi Kini
and Ravi Varma, respondents, who were appoint-
ed prior to December 22. 1959. would have to
be determined on the basis of their length of
service in accordance with Office Memorandum
dated June 22, 1949 and not on the basis of
the date of their confirmation."
These considerations apply equally to the present case as well. The general rule is if seniority is to be regulated in a particular manner in a given period, it shall be given effect to, and shall not be varied to disadvantage retrospectively. The view taken by the Division Bench, which is in substance contrary to this principle is not sound and cannot be supported.
In the result, these appeals are allowed with costs. In reversal of the judgment of the Division Bench, we restore that of the learned single Judge. N.P.V. Appeals allowed.