The main legal point established in the judgment is that the determination of seniority in the cadre of Food and Supplies Officers should be based on the length of continuous service, and the completion of probation has no relevance to the determination of seniority under the applicable Rules.

ORDER :

RAJBIR SEHRAWAT, J.

1. The present petition has been filed seeking quashing of order dated 21.05.2020 (Annexure P-3) to the extent it has placed the petitioners at lower slot in the seniority list than the respondents No.3 to 19 (private respondents), in violation of the earlier order dated 02.12.2019 (Annexure P-2) passed by this Court in CWP No.1361 of 2017, with a further prayer that the petitioners be allotted seniority over and above the above said private respondents.

2. The facts in brief; as can be delineated from the writ petition; are that the petitioners were in service in the respondent- Department. The petitioners were promoted up to the post of Assistant Food Supplies Officers. Later on vide order dated 31.12.2012 the petitioners were promoted as Food and Supplies Officers against the promotion quota posts, along with other eligible persons, who were promoted separately vide order dated 09.11.2012. Thereafter, the respondents No.3 to 19 were appointed on the posts of Food and Supplies Officers by way of direct recruitment; in February, 2014. So the petitioners had already been working on the post of Food and Supplied Officers for the past about two years, when the private respondents joined the services in the Department as Food and Supplies Officers.

3. On 21.07.2016, the respondent-Department issued a tentative seniority list for the cadre of Food and Supplies Officers. The objections were invited qua the same. After inviting the objections and dealing with the same, the seniority list was finalized by the Department on 27.12.2016. The said final seniority list was challenged by the direct recruits by filing CWP No.1361 of 2017 and CWP No.7203 of 2017. The primary ground for challenging the seniority list was that some of the promotees including the petitioners had been granted promotion on the post of Food and Supplies Officers even though they were not eligible to be promoted as per the qualifications prescribed under the Rules. Hence, they cannot be taken to have been validly promoted on their post. If they are to be retained on the promotional post by the authorities, they are free to retain them, but the seniority of such persons has to be put after the direct recruits; who had joined the Department after being selected through competitive process. The said writ petition was disposed of by this court vide judgment/order dated 02.12.2019, whereby the promotion order of the present petitioners and the final seniority list was quashed. However, the directions were issued by the Court, which read as under:

i) Upon the setting aside of the impugned promotion Orders of the Private Respondents, the official Respondents shall pass the fresh promotion orders of the Private Respondents in the Cadre of FSOs strictly in consonance with the requirements of Appendix B read with Rule 8 of the 1988 Rules keeping in consideration the quota and the condition regarding the minimum experience;

ii) Once the fresh promotion Orders of the private Respondents in terms of (i) above with effect from respective retrospective dates are issued and probation periods completed, thereafter, fresh exercise of fixation of seniority of the two streams of FSOs i.e. the Directly Recruited and the Promotees in the cadre of FSOs shall be made by assigning/placing them from due dates;

iii) Thereafter, the consequential revisited / revised promotional orders and fixation / re-fixation of seniority of the affected Officers in higher ranks shall be made in accordance with the requirements of the relevant Recruitment Rules governing the respective higher ranks;

iv) While implementing the above directions, if the consequential promotion, of the persons who have already retired or dead or are in service is affected in any manner to their prejudice, the emoluments already drawn and payments made on account of earlier promotion or benefits granted based on the challenged seniority to them shall not be recovered. The re-fixation of pay etc., in case the