The main legal point established in the judgment is the objective consideration of the petitioner's case for promotion by the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) and the reasonableness and fairness of the actions of the respondent Board and the DPC authority.

1. 1. Anil Kumar Garg (petitioner) by way of this petition has sought appropriate writ, order or direction:-(a) for declaring promotion order dated 14.7.1995 (Ann.3) as illegal and arbitrary which relates to the promotion of S.L. Bora and R.K. Gulati (respondents 2 & 3) to the post of Deputy Housing Commissioner for the year 1994-95 and 1995-96; and (b) for directing the respondent Board to consider his case & promote him against vacancies of the years (1994-95 or 1995-96) with all consequential benefits besides seniority flowing therefrom and (c) for quashing and setting aside instruction No.7 of Circular relating to the procedure for being followed by the DPC in respect of Government servant under loud and/or sealed cover procedure applicable to officer coming under loud after holding of DPC but before promotion.

2. The petitioner having requisite qualification of B.E. (Civil) was initially appointed as Junior Site Engineer in the Rajasthan Housing Board (respondent 0.1) (for short 'the Board') after a regular selection and subsequently he was promoted as Site Engineer under order dated 18.9.1976, and as Resident Engineer by order dated 2.5.1986 but on temporary basis. Similarly undisputably after consideration of the objections, provisional seniority list of the Resident Engineers published on 29.3.1989 was made final which consisted of the Engineers who had been promoted through Departmental Promotion Committee (for brevity DPC) upto 23.8.1986 and as the petitioner was admittedly not selected, so his name did not appear in that seniority list. However, as a result of review DPC the petitioner was promoted through regular selection to the post of Resident Engineer for the year 1986-87 as would be evident from order dated 14.7.1995 (Ann.2) according to which, R.K. Gulati (respondent 3) was admittedly senior to the petitioner because in that promotion order, the petitioner's name appeared at S.No.3 while respondent 3's at S.No.2.

3. A dispute came to have arisen when the petitioner was not selected and promoted from the post of Resident Engineer to higher post of Deputy Housing Commissioner whereas by impugned and another promotion order dated 14.7.1995 (Ann.3), S.L. Bora (respondent 2) was promoted for the year 1994-95 against the vacany of merit quota on the basis of seniority and merit, and for the year 1995-96 R.K. Gulati (respondent 3) was promoted on the basis of merit alone.

4. The petitioner has firstly assailed the promotions of the respondents 2 & 3 by contending that though the petitioner was available in the merit quota of the year 1994-95 but the respondent 2 was promoted wrongly and illegally by converting the vacancy itself into vacancy of seniority-cum-merit on the ground of non-availability of meritorious candidates, and similarly for merit quota post for the year 1995-96 to which R.K. Gulati was illegally promoted in preference to him, for which the petitioner has reasonable assumption that either his case on merit basis was not considered and/or if considered then it has not been fairly considered in accordance with (1) amendment dated 10.4.1991 made in Rajasthan Housing Board (Employees Conditions of Recruitment and Promotion) Regulations, 1976, (2) Rule 23, (3) Explanation to sub-rule (11)(b) of Rule 24A, (4) sub-rule (4) of Rule 24A of the Rajasthan Service of Engineers (Building & Roads Branch) Rules, 1954, (for brevity "Rules, 1954"), and (5) Instructions dated 26.11.1993 of the State Government for consideration of the incumbents against whom disciplinary inquiry for minor penalty is pending.

5. It has been contended on behalf of the petitioner that on the first day of April of the year of selection i.e. 1.4.1994 there was no charge sheet issued against the petitioner under Regulation 10 of the Board's Employees Conduct Regulations, 1976 for minor penalty while in his case it was issued on 7.7.1994 and accordingly as per his case, he was entitled to promotion for the year 1994-95.

6. As against th