Sambuddha Chakrabarti, J.

The grievances of the petitioner may be summed up briefly. On January 15, 1985 he was appointed as an Officer Scale-I (JMG) in Howrah Gramin Bank which is a rural bank constituted under the Regional Rural Bank Act, 1976. By a circular dated July 9, 1987 the Manager, Personnel Administration of the bank had published a seniority list of different categories of officers and employees. In the said list the petitioner was placed at serial no. 25.

By another circular dated January 2, 1986 it was declared by the Chairman of the bank that pursuant to the resolution adopted by the Board of Directors it had been decided to select candidates for promotion of Officers from Junior Management Grade – I to Middle Management Grade – II on the basis of selection criteria as laid down in the notification. One of the criteria was allocation of marks on certain basis which, the petitioner claims, had already been

The bank after an interview promoted respondents nos. 3 to 7 as Officers Grade II Middle Management Grade by an order dated June 20, 1996. Consequently the petitioner had been superseded by respondents nos. 6 and 7 who are juniors to the petitioners according to the seniority list. Subsequently these two respondents had also been promoted to the post of Scale III Officers and the petitioner is still working as a Grade I Officer.

It appears that the principal grievance of the petitioner is that allotment of 50 marks for the seniority criteria to all having eight years’ service and allocation of 50 marks for performance and interview were contrary to the guideline laid down by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and to law as it leaves sufficient scope for the employer to manipulate. This procedure adopted by the respondent bank was challenged by a writ petition filed by several superseded employees of the bank in this court. In the meantime, the promotion rules of 1988 came under challenge all over India and ultimately the matters went to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court had allowed the writ petitions holding the rules of 1988 to be contrary to the principles of seniority-cum-merit.

Subsequently, the Ministry of Finance (Banking Division), Government of India, notified a fresh promotion policy, which for the present purpose may be referred to as Rules of 1998, by superseding the Rules of 1988.

The said writ petition filed by the suspended employees was disposed of by a learned single judge on April 21, 2005 wherein it was directed that promotions to the private respondents should not be disturbed except for the purpose of re-determination of seniority, if necessary in the respective grades. Promotion to the petitioners shall be given to the MMG Scale II from the date of their respective juniors were given promotion to the grade and actual financial benefit shall be given to the petitioners from the date of actual promotion. The writ petitioners filed an appeal before the division bench but the division bench refused to interfere as it was not right in disturbing the promotional process which would cause immense prejudice to the bank. Their Lordships of the division bench further held that during the pendency of the appeal Gramin Banks stood merged with Paschim Banga Gramin Bank and there had to be a common gradation list.

The authorities had thereby promoted all the petitioners of the writ petition of 1996 to MMG Scale II notionally with effect from June 7, 1996 and with actual financial benefits from May 1, 2005.

The present petitioner’s grievance is that thereafter the seniority list of respective grades has not been revised and finalized. He alleges that although the writ petitioners of the earlier writ petition were similarly placed as that of the present petitioner and all of them have been superseded by the respondents nos. 6 and 7 the petitioner has not been provided the promotion for not approaching to the court at the proper time and consequently due to non p