IMPORTANT POINTS
Binding precedent; Review/clarification of judgment.

JUDGMENT

H.L. Gokhale J.-Leave granted.

2. These two Civil Appeals by Special Leave raise the question with respect to the approach the High Courts and the State Governments are expected to adopt towards the orders passed, and the interpretations of Govt. resolutions rendered by this Court. The question arises in the context of litigation concerning the promotional avenues for the teachers in Bihar Government Service. The relevant facts:-

3. The facts leading to the two Civil Appeals herein are as follows:-

The State of Bihar, which is respondent No.66 in these two appeals, set up a three member committee, in March 1976, with Shri Saran Singh, Member Board of Revenue, and Administrative Reforms Commissioner, as its Chairman. The terms of reference of this Committee were as follows:-

“To hasten the avenues for promotion in the Bihar Civil Services, the government has approved junior selection grade 20%, senior selection grade 12.50% and posts of senior Deputy Collector 2.5%. The same percentage has been applied for junior selection grade and senior selection grade in the Bihar Engineering Service. On this basis, requests have been coming from various state services associations that due to lack of opportunity for promotion in their cadres, there is stagnation, which must be removed.

1.2 Hence, keeping in view the strength and present promotional avenues in various State service cadres, to analyse the problem of stagnation and to recommend means to tackle this problem and promotional opportunities, a committee of the following officers is constituted:-

(1) Member, Board of Revenue-Chairman

(2) Chairman, Public Grievances Bureau- Member

(3) Finance Commissioner- Member”

4. The committee drew its conclusions on the basis of the facts and figures furnished by various departments. As stated in the report, the approach of the committee was to find out:-

(a) what relatively, is the extent of stagnation in different services, and the present prospects of promotion, and

(b) how the stagnation can be removed and promotional opportunities enlarged.

5. The committee noted that all the service associations staked claims for the same percentage of the promotional posts as allowed to Bihar Civil Service and Bihar Engineering Service. Two of the reasons for stagnation noted by the committee were:

(i) relatively heavy recruitment of officers of the same age group in certain years,

(ii) and lack of adequate number of promotional posts at different levels of the organizational hierarchy. The recommendations of the committee with respect to various services are in part III of its report. As far as Bihar Education Service is concerned, it has been discussed in para (9), thereof. To begin with, the committee dealt with the promotional chances of Class-II officers into Class-I. Then in sub-para B it has dealt with the posts in specialized institutes like those teaching Sanskrit, Prakrit and Persian. Thereafter in sub-para C it has dealt with the Miscellaneous Cadre. The analysis in this part and the recommendations read as follows:-

“C. Miscellaneous cadre 11.10.

This service consists of 59 posts of different categories like teachers, engineers, Doctors, Stadium Manager, etc. and excepting the teachers of Netarhat School who have adequate prospects of promotion within the cadre, most of the members of the cadre hold isolated posts with no definite prospect of promotion. No promotional posts can be provided for because of the isolated nature of their job. In order, however, to minimize the hardships in their case, the committee would like to make the following suggestion for consideration of the Education Department:-

(1) Education department may get the posts of engineers included in the cadre of the Public Works Department and obtain their services on deputation basis.

(2) The two posts of the doctors may also be got included in the Health service and service of doctors obtained on deputation basis.

(3) The remaining posts should be included