Point of Law : Impugned judgment does not suffer from any infirmity warranting interference in this intra-Court writ appeal.

JUDGMENT :

The instant intra-Court writ appeal has been preferred by the appellant/writ petitioner for assailing the common judgment and order dated 24.05.2023 whereby the learned Single Judge dismissed three separate writ petitions, being, WP(C) 6236/2022, WP(C) 2959/2023 and WP(C) 6052/2022, filed by the appellant herein for assailing the appointment of the respondent No.5, Sukhendu Narayan Dhar Choudhury, in the post of LDA so as to deprive him of seniority in the gradation list on the ground that the initial appointment of the respondent No.5 was illegal.

2. Heard learned counsel appearing for the parties and perused the impugned judgment and the material placed on record.

3. Learned counsel Mr. B.K. Goswami, representing the appellant vehemently and fervently urged that the appointment of the respondent No.5 on the post of LDA, as projected to have been made by order dated 07.03.1994, was illegal because the very Advertisement/Notice dated 24.09.1993 issued by the department for making appointment on the said post was dehors the rules and thus, appointment of the respondent against the vacant post of LDA under the Executive Engineer, Silchar, F.C. Division was void abinitio and illegal. As the very appointment of the respondent No.5 was illegal, he could not have been assigned seniority in the gradation list over and above the appellant/writ petitioner. He thus implored the Court to accept the writ appeal; set aside the impugned judgment; and as a consequence, direct the respondents to terminate the respondent No.5 from services and accord appropriate seniority to the appellant/writ petitioner over and above the respondent No.5.

4. Percontra, learned counsel representing the respondents vehemently and fervently opposed the submissions advanced by appellant’s counsel. They urged that the appellant herein filed an earlier writ petition, being, WP(C) 3727/2022 for challenging the provisional gradation list of Senior Assistants which was disposed of by order dated 06.06.2022 directing the respondents to consider the representation dated 17.02.2022 filed by the appellant/writ petitioner. The said representation was objectively considered and rejected by a speaking order dated 08.09.2022. The appellant/writ petitioner challenged the said rejection by filing WP(C) 6052/2022. He also filed another writ petition, being, WP(C) 6236/2022 challenging the final gradation list dated 13.09.2022 issued by the department. They urged that the appellant/writ petitioner claimed that during pendency of these two writ petitions, i.e. WP(C) 6052/2022 and WP(C) 6236/2022, the appellant/writ petitioner received information under the RTI Act, which disclosed that the very recruitment notice dated 24.09.1993 issued by the departmental authorities was illegal and was dehors the rules. Learned counsel for the respondents drew the Court’s attention to the facts noted in paragraph 13 of the impugned judgment wherein it is reflected that the appellant’s counsel gave up the challenge laid to the appointment of the respondent No.5. Hence, it is contended that as the challenge to the appointment of the respondent No.5 had been given up, the appellant cannot be allowed to challenge the seniority list, which is based on the length of service of the respondent No.5 in the department. They further submitted that the learned Single Judge, while dismissing the writ petitions, has observed that the endeavour of the writ petitioner lacks bona fide and his conduct deserves to be deprecated. Thus, they urged that this intra-Court writ appeal should be dismissed with exemplary cost.

5. We have given our thoughtful consideration to the submissions advanced at Bar.

From a bare perusal of the impugned judgment, we find that the petitioner’s counsel did not press the challenge laid to the appointment/selection of the respondent No.5, which fact was noted by the learned Single Judge at paragraph 13 of the impugned judgment. Even while arguing the appeal before us, learned couns