Samiksha, D/o. Ramakant Chandrakar vs State of Maharashtra, Through the Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue & Forest Department

Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2024 Supreme(Bom) 821

RAVINDRA V. GHUGE, Y. G. KHOBRAGADE
Samiksha, D/o. Ramakant Chandrakar – Appellant
Versus
State of Maharashtra, Through the Additional Chief Secretary, Revenue & Forest Department – Respondent

Advocates Appeared:
For the Parties :Shri Atul Rajadhyaksha, Senior Advocate a/w Shri Akhilesh Dubey, Shri Uttam Dubey, Shri Amit Dubey, Shri Krishna P. Rodge, Shri Rajuram Kuleriya i/by Law Counsellors, Adv., Shri Akhilesh Dubey, Advocate a/w Shri Jiwan J. Patil, Adv., Shri V.D. Sapkal, Senior Advocate a/w Shri Ujwal S. Patil and Shri Bhalchandra Shinde, Advs., Shri Ajay Deshpande, Shri Swapnil Joshi, Shri Sameer Kurundkar and Shri Sandip Kulkarni, Advs., Shri Ram S. Apte, Senior Advocate, Special Counsel a/w Shri S.K. Tambe, AGP, Shri P.R. Katneshwarkar, Shri Ashutosh Kumbhakoni, Senior Advocate a/w Shri P.P. More, Adv., Shri Shri Sushant Dixit, Advocate a/w Shri Pandurang Gaikwad, Adv., Shri Avinash S. Deshmukh a/w Shri S.G. Joshi, Advs.

JUDGMENT :

(Ravindra V. Ghuge, J.) :

1. Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith and heard finally, with the consent of the parties.

We are reminded of the words of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in O.P. Singla and another vs. Union of India and others , (1984) 4 SCC 450 :-

“Once again, we are back to the irksome question of inter se seniority between promotees and direct recruits”.

2. In this judgment, for the sake of brevity, the ‘Directly Appointed Deputy Collectors’ would be referred to as ‘DDC’ and the ‘Promotee Deputy Collectors’ would be referred to as ‘PDC’.

3. The two Petitions (Transfer Application Nos.1 and 2 of 2021) were filed by Shivaji Tukaram Shinde with Sunil Vitthalrao Yadav and Smt. Samiksha Ramakant Chandrakar with Pandurang Ramrao Kulkarni. These four Applicants (PDC) had challenged the final seniority list of the officers in the cadre of Deputy Collectors for the period 01.01.1999 to 31.12.2003 published by the State vide circular dated 31.12.2020, which was the impugned seniority list. The grievance of these Applicants was that they had been wrongly pushed down from Sr.Nos.411 and 413 (provisional seniority list published on 24.09.2009) to Sr.Nos.599 and 603, respectively