ORDER

1. Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. Delay condoned in SLP(C) No. 20630/2006.

3. Leave granted in the special leave petitions.

4. All these appeals involve similar question of law therefore they are clubbed together and are being disposed of by a common order.

5. The facts given in C.A. No. 1021/2002 (State of Maharashtra & Ors. Vs. Uttam Vishnu Pawar) are taken into consideration for disposal of these appeals.

6. The respondent-Uttam Vishnu Pawar filed Original Application No. 930/1999 before the Maharashtra Administrative Tribunal Mumbai and sought a direction that his services which have been rendered by him in the earlier department may be counted for computing the period of 12 years service for Time Bound Promotion as per Government Resolution dated 8.6.1995. The Tribunal vide its order dated 14th March, 2000 allowed the claim of the respondent and held that the services rendered by the incumbent in the previous department shall be counted in computing the period of 12 years for Time Bound Promotion Scheme. Aggrieved against the order passed by the Tribunal, the State of Maharashtra-appellant herein filed a writ petition before the High Court. The Division Bench of the High Court of Bombay after hearing both the parties affirmed the order of the Tribunal dated 14.3.2000.

7. The respondent herein was working as a Telephone Operator in Irrigation Department of the State of Maharashtra. Thereafter he made a request for his transfer from Mumbai Zone to Kolhapur Zone. The request of the respondent was acceded to and he was transferred on his own request from Mumbai Zone to Kolhapur Zone and he lost his seniority in Mumbai Zone and he joined in Kolhapur Zone on 14.6.1990 as a Junior Clerk at zero

seniority. Thereafter, the State Government passed a Resolution dated 8.6.1995 giving a Time Bound Promotion to the persons who are stagnated in the Group C and D cadres for a long period. As per the said Resolution those persons who have put in 12 years of service and who fulfill other conditions laid down in the said Resolution were eligible for the next higher scale of pay. We are not concerned with the other conditions laid down in the Resolution dated 8.6.1995. We are only concerned with the limited question that whether the respondent is entitled to count his service rendered in the Mumbai Zone when he was transferred to Kolhapur Zone for purposes of computing 12 years of service so as to enable him to get the benefit of this Resolution. The Tribunal granted the benefit of past service to the respondent and the same was affirmed by the Division Bench of the High Court.

8. Learned counsel for the State of Maharashtra submitted that since the incumbent was at zero seniority in the Kolhapur Zone therefore his services rendered in the Mumbai Zone cannot be counted for computing the period of 12 years so as to give him the benefit of Time Bound Promotion Scheme as per Resolution dated 8.6.1995.

9. As against this, learned counsel for the respondent submitted that the incumbent has already lost his seniority and as per the transfer order he has been placed at the zero seniority level but it does not mean that he will lose the service put in by him in the Mumbai Zone. Learned counsel for the respondent has invited our attention to a series of cases of this Court where a view has been taken that if an incumbent is transferred to another zone either by way of public interest or on his own request in either situation the incumbent will get the benefit of past service without getting any benefit of seniority.

10. In this connection our attention was invited to the case of Dwijen Chandra Sarkar and Another Vs. Union of India And Others (1999) 2 SCC 119. In that case the incumbent was transferred from Rehabilitation Department to P & T Department in public interest at zero level seniority in the P & T De