Not every reduction in rank, but a reduction in rank by way of punishment only, can attract the operation of Art.311 (2) of the Constitution.

1. The petitioner had been the Head Clerk, Government Central Press, Trivandrum, and was provisionally promoted as Manager in the office of the Superintendent of Government Presses, Trivandrum by an order, Ext. P1, of the first respondent, the State of Kerala, dated, the 18th April, 1959. In the integration of the services, upon the formation of the State of Kerala, the first respondent approved on the 29th July. 1959, Ext. R-3 which is "a preliminary integrated gradation list of the former Travancore-Cochin personnel, and the staff allotted from Madras in the ministerial line of the department of Printing as on the 1st November, 1956, prepared in, accordance with the general principles and the orders regarding equation of posts contained in the Government orders," Ext. P-2 dated the 29th December, 1956 and others; but Ext. R-3 was not final, and permitted appeals to be preferred by those who were aggrieved by it. According to Ext. R-3, the petitioner's rank was fixed as the 5th, while that of the 2nd respondent, an officer allotted from Madras, was fixed as the 3rd in the substantive post. The second respondent had already made a representation on the 20th April, 1959, that is, within two days of Ext. P-1, that he, and not the petitioner had the legitimate claim for promotion; now that the relative ranks had been fixed by Ext. R-3, though provisionally, the first respondent by order Ext. P-6 dated the 6th August, 1959, reverted the petitioner, and appointed the second respondent as the Manager in the office of the Superintendent of Government Presses, Trivandrum. This original petition was therefore filed by the petitioner to quash. Ext. P-6, on the ground, that the reversion of the petitioner was a reduction in rank by way of punishment, and was made in violation of the guarantee provided by Art.311(2) of the Constitution; the contentions of his learned counsel in this respect were two-fold, first, that though the petitioner's appointment as Manager on promotion was provisional, he had a right to hold that post until the integration of services was finalised, and secondly, that granting that he had no such right, his reversion to the 5th rank in his substantive post, which was lower than the rank which he had previously held in it, amounted in law to a reduction in rank by way of punishment. The learned counsel relied, for both these contentions, only on the principles formulated by the Supreme Court in the majority judgment in P. L. Dhingra v. Union of India A. I. R.1958 S. C. 36; it is therefore necessary to examine what this case has decided. Broadly speaking, Dhingra's case has affirmed the view already held, that not every reduction in rank, but a reduction in rank by way of punishment only, can attract the operation of Art.311 (2), and to ascertain this, it has formulated two tests' first, whether the government servant has a right to hold the post in which his service was terminated, and second, whether the termination of service carried with it penal or evil consequences. This may be examined more closely.

2. As pointed out by the learned Chief Justice, who delivered the majority judgment in Dhingra's case, an appointment to a permanent post may be made in three ways, substantively or on probation or trial, whether for a fixed period or not, or on, an officiating basis. The petitioner's promotion, having been ordered provisionally, falls under the third category, and the questions involved in this petition have to be decided in relation to that category. The learned Chief Justice observed thus, at page 42 of the report:

"It is therefore quite clear, that appointment to a permanent post in a government service, either on probation or on an officiating basis, is, from the very nature of such employment, itself of a transitory character and, in the absence of any special contract or specific rule regulating the conditions of the service, the implied term of such appointment, under the ordinary law of master an