Point of Law: Article 58 of Limitation Act provides that three years is limitation for approaching Court seeking declaration as from date when right to sue first accrued.

JUDGMENT :

By way of this Writ Petition, the petitioner has prayed for quashing of the proceedings of Departmental Promotion Committee, dated 02.12.2008, appended with the Petition as Annexure P2, in terms whereof, the incumbents mentioned therein were recommended for promotion to the posts of Block Medical Officers on regular basis as well as for proforma promotion and also notification dated 17.05.2008 (Annexure P4), in terms whereof, additional provision in Column-17 was inserted in the Himachal Pradesh Health & Family Welfare Department, Himachal Pradesh Block Medical Officer, Class-I (Gazetted) Recruitment & Promotion Rules, 2006.

2. Brief facts necessary for the adjudication of the present petition are as under:

As per the petitioner, he joined the respondent-Department as a Medical Officer on adhoc basis with effect from 13.08.1991. He was thereafter appointed on regular basis on the recommendation of Himachal Pradesh Public Service Commission w.e.f. 13.12.1992. Respondent/State notified Himachal Pradesh Health & Family Welfare Department, Himachal Pradesh Block Medical Officer, Class-I (Gazetted) Recruitment & Promotion Rules, 2006 (hereinafter referred to as ‘2006 Rules’) for the purpose of conferring promotion to Medical Officers as Block Medical Officers. In terms of these Rules, a Medical Officer with ten years of regular service or regular combined with continuous adhoc service rendered, if any, in the grade, out of which three years’ service was required to be in hard/rural area was eligible for promotion to the post of Block Medical Officer, provided the officer had passed the departmental examination as prescribed under the Departmental Examination Rules, 1997. The petitioner, qualified the departmental examinations in April, 2008 and thus became eligible for promotion to the post of Block Medical Officer.

3. The grievance of the petitioner is that in terms of Annexure P2, the Departmental Promotion Committee recommended the names of thirty four Medical Officers for promotion to the post of Block Medical Officers, which was followed by the recommendations of another Departmental Promotion Committee, held on 08.11.2010, proceedings of which are appended with his petition as Annexure P3.

The petitioner was not recommended for promotion vide Annexure P2 and at the time he was of the opinion that he might not be falling in the zone of consideration. Thereafter, vide Annexure P3, the petitioner was recommended for promotion and he was promoted as a Block Medical Officer. Thereafter, as per the petitioner, a provisional seniority list of Block Medical Officers was circulated by the respondent-Department vide Memorandum dated 25.07.2013 and after perusing the same, the petitioner was astonished to see that many Medical Officers who had not qualified the departmental examination, stood promoted as Block Medical Officers and after making calculations, the petitioner was further astonished to see that he was amongst few persons who had actually passed the departmental examination. Further, as per the petitioner, many ineligible persons were promoted as Block Medical Officer ahead of him and thus, his career was jeopardized as he was considered for promotion only in the year 2010. He subsequently came to know that respondent-Department had issued a notification dated 17.05.2008, which notification was relied upon by the Departmental Promotion Committee which was held in the year 2008, whereby in Column 17 of Recruitment and Promotion Rules, ‘an advantage has been made’ in favour ineligible Medical Officers. It is further averred in the petition that a Government notification cannot substitute, add or delete the provisions of Recruitment & Promotion Rules made under Article 309 of the Constitution of India and thus, the notification (Annexure P4) was bad in law. After the petitioner became aware of these facts, he made repeated representations, copies of which are appended with the petition as Annexure P5 to P7. He also raised