Chhatisgarh HC: Past promotions are not the only factor to decide seniority in a profession.

A single judge bench of the High Court of Chhattisgarh, BILASPUR on 31.01.2019 in TIKAM CHAND PATEL Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH (WP(S) 650 of 2019) disposed of the writ. The bench was headed by Justice P. Sam Koshy.

FACTS:

The petitioner was initially appointed earlier to the respondent No. 4.(R4).  Both the petitioner and the R4 were promoted to the post of Lecturer on the same day and the R4 was placed below the petitioner in the year 2010. Thereafter, the name of the R4 was reflected below the name of the petitioner in all the subsequent gradation lists till the impugned gradation list which was published showing the petitioner to be much junior to the R4, in as much as, the petitioner had been placed at serial No.1545 in the gradation list whereas, the respondent No.4 was placed at serial Number 395. The petitioner had immediately made a representation to the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 however, the representation, till date, had not been decided.

ISSUES:

·       Whether the gradation list had been wrongly prepared by the respondents for the year 2018?

·       Factors responsible for deciding seniority.

OBSERVATIONS:

The court observed that:-

• The defaults pointed out by the Registry stand ignored for the reason that the petitioner does not rely upon the said document to canvass his case.
• For deciding seniority many factors are considered like the date of appointment, the date of promotion, quality of work and many others, not only the  past promotions.

HELD:

The court disposed of the writ petition with the following directions for respondents 2 and 3:-

• Respondent Nos. 2 and 3 had to decide the representation of the petitioner taking into account the date of appointment, the date of promotion and other factors required for determining the seniority of the petitioner as compared to respondent No. 4.
• This exercise should be completed within a period of three months from the date of receipt of certified copy of this order.

For full judgement refer: http://cg.nic.in/hcbspjudgement/judgements_web/WP(S)650_19(31.01.19).pdf