Holding

Seniority is governed by the service rules, and the regularised officers must be placed below the regular recruits appointed up to the 1970 examination; the ad‑hoc service period is not to be counted for seniority.

Summary

The case concerned 29 employees of the Central Information Service whose ad‑hoc service was regularised in 1977. They claimed that their period of ad‑hoc service (1964‑1977) should be counted for seniority and that they should be placed above regular recruits appointed through examinations up to 1970. The High Court and the Central Administrative Tribunal had held that the ad‑hoc period should be counted, directing promotion. The Supreme Court examined the CIS Rules 1959, particularly Rule 5, Rule 6 and the 1977 proviso to Rule 6A, and held that seniority is an incidence of service governed by the rules, which expressly placed regularised officers below the last regular recruit of the 1970 examination. Consequently, the Court dismissed the writ petition and allowed the civil appeals, setting aside the lower courts' decisions. The judgment emphasized that governmental actions must conform to rules framed under Article 309 of the Constitution.

Issues considered

Whether ad‑hoc service prior to regularisation should be counted for seniority under the Central Information Service Rules.
Whether the Government order placing regularised officers below regular recruits up to the 1970 examination is valid.
Interpretation of the seniority computation provisions in Rule 5 and the proviso to Rule 6A of the CIS Rules.
Whether judicial interference is permissible when service rules, framed under Article 309, are clear.

Subjects

seniorityinter se seniorityservice rulesregularisationpromotionCentral Information ServiceArticle 309Article 32service law

Judgment

A.K. BHATNAGAR AND ORS.
A
v.
UNION OF INDIA AND ORS.

NOVEMBER 9, 1990

B [RANGANATH MISRA_, CJ, M.M. PUNCHi-II AND
K. RAMASWAMY, JJ.]

Central Information Service Rules, !959-Rule 5-Direct
Recruits-Inter se seniority-Fixation of.

C Respondent no, 1 in the Civil Appeal of 1985, nioved the High
Court in a writ to consider his case for promotion to Grade II and
Grade I of the Central Information Service in the existing vacancies
arising subsequent to 1964 by taking into consideration the period of his
ad hoc service from the year 1964, and challenging the direction in the
Government order requiring the regularised employees to be placed
D bet.iw the regular recruits upto 1970 on the basis of that year's exami·
nation. The Union Government opposed the claim.

The Single Judge held that lhe officiating service would not be
ignored once regularisation was made and directed the period of ad hoc
service to be taken into account. The Division Bench affirmed the
E decision.

The appellant in the C.A. of 1985 challenged the High Court's
decision, and the appellants in the two Civil Appeals challenged the
judgments of CAT which followed the High Court's decision. The writ
petition under Article 32 was by 29 employees whose services were
F regularised.

Dismissing the Writ Petition and allowing the Civil Appeals, this
Court,

HELD: 1. Seniority is an incidence of service and where the
G service rules prescribe the method of its computation, it is squarely
governed by such rules. In the absence of a provision ordinarily the
length of service is taken into account. A dispute of such nature nor-
mally arises between recruits from two sources, namely direct and
promotees. [642C-D]

H 2. Reliance on the ratio of cases where disputes of inter se senio-

638 :
'
.I
A.K. BHATNAGAR v. U.0.1. 639

rity between direct recruits and promotees on the basis of officers of one A
category manning the posts meant for the other category should not have
been relied upon for determining a dispute of the nature that arose in
these cases. Since rules are clear and the Government action was
within the purview of the rules, jndicial interference was not called
for. [642 G-H]
B
3. When there is a dermite rule dealing with seniority and they
had subjected themselves to that process, their seniority in terms of the
_, rules had to he regulated according to the merits of the respective lists
in the years when the examinations were held. [643D]

4. The Union and the State Governments once frame the rules, c
their action, in respect of matters covered by the rules, shonld be
regulated by the rules. The rules framed in exercise of powers conferred
under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution are solemn rules
having binding effect. Acting in a manner contrary to the rules does
create problem and dislocation. Very often Government themselves get
trapped on account of their own mistakes or actions in excess of what is
D
provided in the rules. Court takes serious view of these lapses and hopes
and trusts that the Government both at the Centre and in the States
would take note of this position and refrain from acting in a manner not
contemplated by their own rules. [643F-G I
E
ORIGINAL JURISDICTION: Writ Petition No. 12874of 1985.

(Under Article 32 of the Constitution of India)
WITH
Civil Appeal Nos. 4232 of· 1985 and Special Leave Petition (C)
F
No. 3702 of 1988 and Civil Appeal Nos. 986 and 987 of 1988, C.M.P.
No. 14054 of 1989 in Civil Appeal No, 986 of 1988 and I.A. No. 2 and
3.

V.M.Tarkunde, N. Kumar, V.C. Mahajan, M.C. Bhandare, P.
Chidambaram, A.S. Nambiar. S. Markandeya, W.A. Nomani. G.
Seshagari Rao, Ms.C. Markandeya, Ejaz Maqbool, M.D. Adkar,
G
H.S. Anand, R.P. Srivastava, P. Parmeshwaran, S.C. Patel, Ms. A.
Subhashini, A.K. Srivastava, M.S. Ganesh, Mrs. M. Qamaruddin,
Ms. Sushma Suri, B.K. Prasad, V.J. Francis, P.K. Manohar, B.S ..
Charya, V.K.. Verma, Qamaruddin and Smt. Shanta Vasudevan for
the appearing parties.
H
640 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [ 1990] Supp. 2 S.C.R. ,... 11

Ra jendra Roy and P. Kashyap appeared in person.
A
The Judgment of the Court was delivered by

RANGANATH MISRA, CJ. The Civil Appeals are by special
leave and the writ petition is under Article 32 of the Constitution. The
B Civil Appeal of 1985 is directed against an affirming Division Bench
decision of the Madras High Court dated 16.8.84 in a writ appeal while
the two other Civil Appeals are directed against two separate judg-
ments of the Central Administrative Tribunal made in 1987 following ,.
the aforesaid Madras decision . The Writ Petition as will be presently
indicated is by 29 petitioners. Who had not been regularly recruited to
the service but later by amendment of the ruks were regularised in
c service in 1977.

The service with which we are concerned in this group of cases is
known as "Central Information Service" (C.l.S. for short). This
service was constitutued by the Central Information Service Rules,
D 1959 framed by the President in exercise of powers conferred by the
proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution with effect from 1.3.60 in
terms of rule 5. This was on the basis of selecting 400 'departmental
candidates' as defined in rule 28 of the Rules. Rule 6 provides that
after the initial constitution of the service, future vacancies in grade IV
would be filled by direct recruitment on the basis of the result of a
E competitive examination conducted by the Union Public Service Com-
mission in accordance with the educational qualifications and age limit
mentioned in Schedule VIII and the scheme of examination which is to
be finalised in consultation with the Commission.

Under rule 4 the service has seven tiers beginning with grade IV
F and going up to the selection grade. Direct recruitment is to Grade IV
and the higher grades are manned on the basis of promotion. The
•-
requirements of promotional qualifications are in rule 6A. In this
group of cases the dispute is one of inter se seniority among direct
recruits to grade IV.

0 After the initial constitution there were four recruitments up to j
1970, being in 1964, 1965, 1969 and 1970. It appears that in 1964 there
was condonation of the age bar and 141 candidates had appeared but
22 qualified. In 1965 and 1970 perhaps there was no relaxation of age
while in 1969 the prescribed age was relaxed. In the Service there were
68 ad hoc employees who have been regularised in the subsequent ' -~.
H recruitments referred to above while there were 73 other ad hoc emp-
~
A.K. BHATNAGAR v. U.0.1. [MISRA, CJ.) 641

loyees who either took the examination and failed or never sat at the
A
examinations to become regular recruits until the second proviso was
added to rule 6A of the Rules and the order regularising their service
was made by notification dated 27th January, 1977. The proviso in
question reads thus:

"Provided further that persons appointed on or before B
1. 7. 76 to discharge the duties and functions of the posts
included in Grade IV of the Central Information Service to
make good the shortfall in the filling up of vacancies in the
grade by the above mentioned method and who have dis-
charged the duites and responsibilities of the post included
in Grade IV of the Service for at least five years shall be
appointed to the Grade after they are screened by a Selec- c
tion Committee to determine their suitability for appoint-
ment."

In terms of this proviso the notification of 27th of January, 1977,
was issued to the following e~ect: D

"Under second proviso to Rule 6A of the Central Infor-
mation Service Rules, 1959 as amended from time to
time the following officers holding ad hoc appointment
against grade IV posts of the CIS are hereby appointed
on regular basis in Grade IV of the Central Information E
Service with affect from 4th of January, 1977 u,ptil
further orders ...... ..

The above officers will be placed en bloc in the
same order below the last Grade IV Officers appointed
on the basis of 1970 Examination i,e, below Shri Sita F
Ram Ho."

Mr.V. Thirunavukkarasu,_ respondend no. 1, in the Civil Appeal
of 1985 whose service were regularised by the order of 27th January,
1977 with effect from 4th of January, 1977-and his name occurred at
19th place in the notification-moved the Madras High Court under G
Article 226 of the Constitution for a mandamus to the Union Govern-
ment to consider his case for promotion to Grade II and Grade I of the
Service in the existing vacancies arising subsequent to 1964 by taking
into consideration the period of his ad hoc service from the year 1964.
He maintained that the {ld hoc service between 25.5.64 to 4.1.77
should have been taken into account for determining his seniority. H
.4-~
'
642 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1990] Supp. 2 S.C.R. .. 1

A This. virtually challenged the direction in the Government order of
27th January, 1977, requiring the regularised employees to be placed
below the regular recruits upto 1970 on the basis of that year's exami-
nation. The Union Government opposed the claim but the learned
Single Judge relied upon the judgments of this Court in Baleshwar
Dass and Ors. Ere. v. Stare of U.P. and Ors. Ere., [1981] 1 S.C.R. 449
B and W.K. Chauhan and Ors. v. Srare of Gujarar and Ors. [1977] 1
SCR 1037 and held that the officiating service would not be ignored
once regularisation was made and directed the said period between
1964 and 1977 to be taken into account. The Division Bench affirmed
the decision. •
The law is clear that seniority is an incidence of service and
c where the service rules prescribe the method of its computation, it is
squarely governed by such rules. In the absence of a provision ordina-
rily the length of service is taken into account. A dispute of this nature
normally arises between recruits from two sources, namely, direct and
promotees, In this group of cases, however, we are concerned with the
D imer se seniority between direct recruits alone. The note to schedule
VIII indicated that the inter se seniority of recruits of one year would
be on the basis of merit.

It was considerably disputed before us as to whether there were
regular recruitment examinations and an attempt was even made to
E equate the examination contemplated under the Rules with the screen-
ing contemplated under the amended proviso. We have found no force
in such a contention. The steps taken by the Union Government and
the acceptance of such steps by the regularised officers clearly militate
against such a contention.

F The regularised officers admittedly remained outside the cadre •.
until 4.1. 77 from when their services were regularised. The Union
Government was, therefore, right while regularising the services under
the notification to direct that the regularised officers would be placed
below regular recruits through the 1970 examination. •

G Reliance on the ratio of cases where disputes of infer se seniority
between direct recruits and promotees on the basis of officers of one
category manning the posts meant for the other category should not
have been relied upon for determining a dispute of the nature that
arose in these cases. Since rules are clear and the Government action
was within the purview of the rules, judicial interference was not called
H for.
A.K. BHATNAGAR v. U.0.1. [MISRA, CJ.] 643

It was contended before us at the hearing that the petitioner A
before the Madras High Court in compliance of the High Court deci-
sion has now gone to Grade I and a short period is left to superannua-
tion and in case there is reversion now he would suffer irreparably.
There is perhaps some force in what is said. We had, therefore, sug-
gested in course of the hearing of these cases that he may not be
B
disturbed from his present position and be permitted to hold a
supernumerary post but he would not be entitled to any further pro-
motion unless by the seniority assigned to him in terms of -the regulari-
sation notification he becomes entitled to it.

Mr. Bhandari learned counsel for some of the regularised emp-
loyees not covered by the Government notification of regularisation c
but whose services became regular through the examinations conten-
ded that though they have taken the examination and become
regularised under the rules, their past service should also be taken into
account. We do not find any force in such a submission particularly
when there is a definite rule dealing with seniority and they had sub-
jected themselves to that process. Their seniority in terms of the rules D
had to be regulated according to the merits of the respective lists in the
years when the examinations were held. We, therefore, do not pro-
pose to meddle with the service in any manner. The net result, there-
fore, would be that the writ petition has to be dismissed and the civil
appeals have to be allowed. The Judgments of the Division Bench and
the Single Judge of the High Court are set aside and the judgments of E
the Tribunal are vacated and the two claims filed before the Central
Administrative Tribunal are also dismissed.

On more than one occasion this Court has indicated to the Union
and the State Governments that once they frame rules, their_ action in
respect of matters covered by rules should be regulated by the rules. F
The rules framed in exercise of powers conferred under the proviso to
Article 309 of the Constitution are solemn rufos having binding effect.
Acting in a manner contrary to the rules does create problem and
dislocation. Very often Government themselves get trapped on
account of their own mistakes or actions in excess of what is provided
in the rules. We take serious view of these lapses and hope and trust G
that the Government both at the Centre and in the States would take
note of this position and refrain from acting in a manner not contemp-
lated by their own rules. There shall be no order as to costs.
V.P.R. Petitions dismissed and
·' Appeals allowed. H