The main legal point established in the judgment is that the purpose of the ACP Scheme cannot be defeated to the detriment of the employees, and the benefits accrued under the erstwhile ACP scheme should have been made available till the introduction of the MACP Scheme. The court also applied the principle of hardship to restrain the recovery of excess payment from the petitioners.

JUDGMENT

Bharati H. Dangre, J. - The petitioners, the employees of the State Government, working with the Water Resources Department have approached this Court seeking quashment and setting aside of the circular dated 02/12/2010 issued by the Government of Goa, Department of Personnel Secretariat by which the petitioners are denied the effect of the MACPS and recoveries were proposed from the petitioners on account of wrongful fixation of their pay. The petitioners also seek a relief of fixation of their salary in the pay scale of Rs.9300-34000 + Rs.4200(G.P.) and the pensionary benefits based on the said pay scales along with future benefits based on revised pay scales. They also seek stay of the impugned circular by which the petitioners alleged is affecting their prospects of appropriate fixation.

2. The petitioners bank on the judgment passed by this Court wherein the same circular dated 02/12/2010 came to be assailed along with the Corrigendum dated 15/04/2011 and it is the submission of the petitioners that the said Writ Petition was instituted by the employees of the Public Works Department (PWD) of State of Goa and in Writ Petition No.668/2014, the Division Bench of this Court quashed the said circular, qua the petitioners and the petitioners were held entitled for all the benefits in terms of the earlier communications in accordance with law. The petitioners question the denial of the same benefit to them and urge that the State has acted arbitrary in their action and their right to be equally treated as the employees of State Government is violated by the State and therefore they are entitled for a writ in the nature of Mandamus against the State Government.

3. The grievance of the petitioners can be briefly summarized as under :

The petitioners, 25 in number joined the services as Lower Division Clerks (LDCs) for the period ranging between 25 to 34 years and some of the petitioners have retired whereas the petitioner Nos.22 to 25 are in service. The petitioners allege that in terms of the Recruitment Rules the LDC's are entitled to the promotion to the post of UDC on rendering three years of regular service, they are further entitled to the promotion of the Head Clerk on rendering continuous service of three years and in the ladder, the Head Clerk is eligible for the promotion of the post of Superintendent on completion of 5 years of the regular service. The case of the petitioners is that though they were eligible to be promoted to the next higher post of UDC/Head Clerk, on account of non-availability of the vacancies they could not earn the promotion.

4. The "Assured Career Progression Scheme" (ACPS) promoted by the Government of India on recommendations of the Fifth Central Pay Commission applicable for 'B', 'C' and 'D' cadre employees and isolated posts in group 'A', 'B', 'C' and 'D' came to be adopted by the State of Goa replacing the existing time bound promotion scheme. The emphasis of the ACP Scheme was to remove the issue of stagnation and hardship faced by the employees due to lack of adequate promotional avenues. The said scheme, being adopted by the Government of Goa was made applicable to the employees of the State Government w.e.f. 22/02/2001. Under the said scheme, two financial upgradations were permitted on completion of 12 years and 24 years of the regular service to the class 'B' 'C' and 'D' employees. These two upgradations were entitled to be counted against regular promotions availed from the grade and could be availed only if no regular promotions in the prescribed period i.e. between 12 to 24 years was granted to an employee. The financial upgradation under the scheme was purely personal to the incumbent and in no way to be realised into a functional/regular promotion. In order to avail the benefit of the said financial upgradation, a Departmental Screening Committee was constituted for screening the eligible employees and recommending them for being eligible for the benefits of ACPS.

On the basi