ORDER

1. The appellant, a Senior Assistant, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste category, made a claim for promotion to the post of Superintendent Grade II, C that was created in the office of Advocate General in the State of Punjab, in the year 1991. That was a second post which had been created, first having been created in the year 1987. The case of the appellant was that the post created in the year 1991 should be treated as reserved for Scheduled Caste candidate. The claim of the appellant was not accepted and the post was filled by appointing a general category candidate, one Dina Nath Singla, who retired from service on 31-10-1996. The appellant did not challenge the promotion of Dina Nath Singla and the action of post not being filled by a candidate of reserved category in the year 1991. When the post fell vacant on retirement of Mr Singla, again it was filled by appointment of a general category candidate, namely, Respondent 3, on 7-2-1997. The claim that the reservation ought to have been carried to two subsequent recruitment years e was rejected by the respondent State Government. The respondent also took the stand that the two subsequent years means calendar years and not recruitment years, and, therefore, according to the State Government the reservation could be carried forward only up to the year 1993 i.e. two calendar years and not recruitment years.2. The promotion of Respondent 3 to the post of Superintendent Grade II as also non-filling of the said post on the basis of reservation, was challenged by the appellant by filing a petition under Article 226 of the Constitution before the High Court. The said petition having been dismissed, this appeal has been filed on grant of leave.

3. In the impugned judgment the High Court after holding that a reserved vacancy (if there is only one vacancy at a particular time) had to be carried forward for two subsequent recruitment years and not two calendar years, rejected the stand of the respondent State that the reservation would lapse in the year 1993. The High Court has held that whenever recruitment takes place subsequent to the first appointment against a post meant for Scheduled Caste candidate reservation has to be carried forward because there is only one vacancy. The first recruitment year was taken by the High Court as 1991. The next recruitment year was taken as 1996 when the post fell vacant on the retirement of Mr Singla. Despite these conclusions, the High Court dismissed the petition noticing that even in 1996 there was only one vacancy and holding on that basis that a candidate from reserved category could not claim appointment on the said single vacancy.

4. The reservation has to be worked out in relation to the post and the concept of vacancy has no relevance. (See R.K. Sabharwal v. State of Punjab1.)

5. How the concept of carrying forward of reservation is to be worked out has been laid down in the Constitution Bench decision of this Court in Arati Ray Choudhury v. Union of India2. It would be useful to reproduce paras 21 and 22 from the said decision which read as under: (SCC pp. 94-95, paras 21-22)

"The SE Railway runs only two secondary schools for girls, one at Adra and the other at Kharagpur. The vacancy at Adra was filled on 16-8-1966 by the appointment of the senior most Assistant Mistress Smt Gita Biswas. In pursuance of the memorandum dated 4-12-1963 of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Railway Board revised the Model Roster by their letter of 16-1-1964. The first point in this roster is a reserved point and therefore the Adra vacancy was strictly a reserved vacancy. But there being only one vacancy in the particular year of recruitment, it had to be treated as unreserved and therefore the appointment went to Smt Biswas, an open, not a reserved candidate. This, however, had to be compensated for by carrying forward the reservation, though not over more than 2 subsequent recruitment years. For the purposes of services under the Railway Administrati