The main legal point established in the judgment is the interpretation of the principles for promotion to selection posts, the concept of vacancy, and the operation of roster for reservation, which influenced the court's decision in directing the respondent-Board to consider the petitioners for promotion with consequential benefits.

Surinder Singh, Judge (Oral) The present petition was pending in the erstwhile H.P. State Administrative Tribunal. On its abolition, it was transferred to this Court and registered as Civil Writ Petition.

2.Heard and gone through the record.

3.The petitioners herein, are the diploma holder Junior Engineers (JE’s) of Electricity Department. They belong to the Scheduled Caste (S.C.) category.

4.Precisely, the petitioners seek the mandamus that they should have been considered to the post of Assistant Engineer (C/M) from the date, it fell due and not the subsequent dates of their promotion.

5.It shall not be out of place to mention here that earlier the petitioners had also filed OA (D) No. 1985/1991 against the respondent-Board.While disposing of the said OA, the learned Tribunal in para­25 in its judgment observed and held as under:-

“25. Keeping in view the case law discussed above and the fact that on the basis of 15% reservation 7 posts were available to be filled up from amongst the Scheduled Caste Junior Engineers (Diploma Holders) to the post of Assistant Engineer, the act of respondents in ignoring the applicant falling under the zone of consideration is unjust, illegal and un-warranted. Out of 303, 201 posts of Assistant Engineers as per Annexure P-8 read with Annexure A-17 the Board cannot deny the right of consideration to the applicants while making promotion to the posts of Assistant Engineers on due dates (to be worked out) may be 19.1.1985 (A-3), 31.1.1988 (A-6) or 2.3.1990 (A-7) respectively.

26. The claim of the applicants right from beginning has been that 104 Junior Engineers from (C/M) had been promoted to the post of Assistant Engineers (C/M) since 1981 on regular/adhoc basis, and only 4 junior engineers for Scheduled Caste and I Junior Engineer for Scheduled Tribe have been promoted leaving behind a back log of 12 and 7 posts respectively. The stand taken by the respondents that Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Junior Engineers are quite junior and do not fall within the extended zone of consideration is not accepted as correct because according to applicants the Junior Engineer from Scheduled Caste appearing at Sr. No. 199, 200, 215, 217, 218 and 221 as per the latest seniority list of Junior Engineers, all within the extended zone of consideration (i.e. five times the numbers of vacancies) and should have been promoted against order dated 19.1.1 985, Annexure A-3 when 40 promotions have been ordered on regular basis. They were also not considered in the subsequent DPCs as is held on 31.8.1988 and 2.3.1990 as per Annexures A-6 and A-7, respectively.27.In view of the aforesaid discussion as the applicants did not fall under the zone of consideration, therefore, they should be considered for promotion. 28.In view of the aforesaid, this Original Application is allowed with a direction to the respondents to consider the case of the applicants for promotion from the date they were actually due for promotion with consequential benefits.”(Emphasis supplied)

6.Since the respondent-Board did not comply with the aforesaid directions issued by the Tribunal, as such, Contempt Petition No. 4/2005 was filed in the Tribunal. In para-4 of the reply (Annexure A-13), on merits, the respondent submitted that as per the relevant instructions relating to reservations, 15% posts of AE (C/M) were to be reserved for the members of S.C. and 11 posts fell to the share of S.C. category. The applicants were alleged to be not in the zone of consideration in the DPC conducted by them, therefore, they were not considered.

7.Significantly, in the sur-rejoinder to the reply in the present petition filed by the respondent-Board, in para-1, it is averred that the total cadre strength falling to the share of Junior Engineer (C/M) Diploma Holder was 86, out of which, on the basis of 15% reservation available to the S.C. category, to which the petitioners belong, 13 posts were to be filled in from the candidates of S.C. category comin