IMPORTANT POINT
Rota quota rule should be followed in inter se promotions if recruitment is within the quota.

Judgment :-

Markandey Katju, J.

1.1. Leave granted.

.2. This appeal by special leave has been filed against the final judgment and order

.dated 5.4.2006 passed by the High Court of Gauhati in Writ Appeal No. 166 of 2004.

2.3. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

3.4. The dispute in this case is about relative seniority between the direct recruits of 1990 and promotees of 1991 to the Grade -II of the Tripura Civil Service which has been constituted under the Tripura Civil Service Rules 1967. The appellants in this case are direct recruits and the respondents are promotees.

4.5. The promotees filed a writ petition before the learned Single Judge of the Gauhati High Court which was dismissed on 23.4.2004, but against that judgment a writ appeal was filed by the promotees which was allowed by the impugned judgment dated 5.4.2006 of the Division Bench of the High Court. Hence this appeal by the direct recruits.

.6. The fixation of the inter se seniority of the members of the Tripura Civil Service (in short, `the TCS) is governed by Rule 28 of the Tripura Civil Service Rule, 1967 (in short, `the TCS Rules). Sub-rule (iii) of Rules 28, which had been the subject of repeated controversy, read as under:

."The relative seniority of direct recruits and of promotees shall be determined according to the rotation of vacancies between direct recruits and promotees which shall be based on the quotas of vacancies reserved for direct recruitment and promotion under rules 5"

5.7. The Government of Tripura had earlier issued a notification, dated 25.5.1981 enunciating the principles governing the inter se seniority between the direct recruits and promotees purportedly consistent with Rule 28(iii). The notification dated 25.5.1981, aforementioned, is reproduced herein below:-

"Government have observed that certain difficulties have arisen in the implementation of the general principles of determining seniority of various categories of persons employed under the Tripura Government, as incorporated in Tripura Administrations order No. F1.(16)-GA/59 dated 12.7.1960.

1.2. It is clarified that the rotation and the fixation of relative seniority of direct recruits and regular promotees shall be done taking into account only such officers as are appointed from either source to the same grade and the same cadre within any single calendar year.

2.3. Any final seniority list already notified by the Government shall not be liable to revision merely because of the issue of the present order.

By order & in the name of the Governor

Sd/- S.R. Sankaran

Chief Secretary to the

Government of Tripura".

1.8. The notification dated 25.5.1981, aforementioned, came to be challenged in Civil Rule No. 204/81 by the promotees of Grade-II of the TCS, who had formed an association under the name and style of the Association of Civil Service Officers, Tripura, Agartala. By judgment and order dated 29.7.1992, a Division Bench of the High Court allowed the Civil Rule and quashed the impugned notification dated 25.5.1981, aforementioned.

2.9. While quashing the said notification dated 25.5.1981, the Division Bench observed and held inter alia, as follows:

"It is well settled in a catena of decisions by the Honble Supreme Court that when there are two sources of recruitments to a service with a fixed quota, the quota rule has to be followed and there should not be any deviation in following the quota rules. It has also been well settled by the catena of decisions by the Honble Supreme Court that if the promotees happen to occupy the vacancies which are within the quota of direct recruits, when direct recruitment takes place, the direct recruits will occupy the vacancies within their quota and the promotees who are occupying the vacancies within the quota of direct recruits will either be reverted or be absorbed in the vacancies within their quota.

So also when direct recruits appointed in the vacancies which are within the quota of promotees after the recru