The Court emphasized that an employee found guilty of misconduct cannot be placed on par with other employees and that a denial of promotion in such circumstances is not a penalty but a necessary consequence of the employee's conduct.

BHARATI H. DANGRE, J.

1. The petitioner has invoked the writ jurisdiction of this Court seeking direction to the respondents to promote the petitioner to the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) on regular basis with effect from 4th July, 2002 with all consequential benefits. The petitioner has also prayed for declaration that action of the respondent be declared as arbitrary and not in accordance with law.

The undisputed facts involved in the petition are culled out as below:

2. The petitioner was appointed as technical assistant with the Airport Authority by order dated 6th May, 1988. In pursuance of the said order of appointment, he resumed his duties at Nagpur Airport and served for a period of five years at the said place. Subsequently, he was transferred to Bhubaneshwar, Port Blaire and again to Bhubaneshwar where he worked for ten years. Thereafter, from the year 2010 he is posted at Mumbai.

3. On 21st December, 2000 the respondents published a seniority list of the Senior Superintendent (Technical) Cadres and the petitioner's name was shown at Serial No. 131. In the year 2002 on the recommendation of the Competent Authority the petitioner was promoted to the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) under the career progression scheme with effect from 1st August, 2000 and thereafter promoted to the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) Regular under regular promotion with effect from 4th July, 2002. However, from two months of taking over the post of Assistant Manager (Technical)-Regular, the petitioner's name was deleted from the promotion list.

This withdrawal of the name from the said promotion list is the genesis of the present litigation. The petitioner was served with the memorandum on 6th October, 2003 informing the petitioner that he had withdrawn and excess amount of Rs.19.417/- towards hotel bill plus 6797/- penal interest during the training programme at Chennai in the year 1999. As per the petitioner, he refunded the entire advance amount granted for the said journey under the amnesty scheme prior to issuance of this memorandum. The issuance of memorandum resulted into imposition of penalty of withholding of increment for the period of one year with cumulative effect by an order dated 2nd January, 2004 passed by the Member (PVA) Airports Authority of India. The said period of penalty came to an end on 31st December, 2005 when the petitioner again made representation to consider him for promotion, which resulted into grant of regular promotion to the petitioner to the post of Assistant Manager (Technical) with effect from 1st January, 2006 by an order dated 3rd April, 2007 issued by the Manager (Personnel) Airports Authority of India.

4. The grievance of the petitioner is that he is granted regular promotion with effect from 1st January, 2006 whereas he is entitled for the said promotion from 4th July, 2002 and for unjustifiable reasons he was kept away from the said benefit, though on the date of his initial promotion i.e. 4th July, 2002 no departmental inquiry was initiated against him. He relies upon the case of one Alok Kumar Rawat who was working with the respondents and who was allegedly victimised in the identical manner as the petitioner and who had approached the High Court of Madhya Pradesh at Indore Bench which granted him relief by an order dated 28th February, 2013 in Writ Petition No. 1918 of 2006 and he was conferred with the benefit of promotion with retrospective effect.

5. The petitioner approached this Court by filing the present writ petition on 23rd June, 2014. On 6th June, 2017 the petitioner sought leave to amend the petition so as to explain the delay in filing the petition and the leave was granted. The petitioner amended the petition extensively, carrying out other amendments rather than restricting the amendment of petition in terms of order passed by this Court on 6th June, 2017 and therefore this Court on 3rd August, 2017 permitted the petitioner to delete the portions which hav