The court ruled that the Finance Circular does not require passing a departmental examination for promotional increments, affirming the entitlement of the petitioner based on prior judgments.

JUDGMENT

Namit Kumar, J.

Petitioner has approached this Court by way of filing present writ petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India seeking a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to grant benefit of promotional increment to the petitioner on completion of 23 years of service w.e.f. 01.01.1996 in terms of instructions dated 28.04.1998 (Annexure P-1) and Finance Circular dated 28.07.2000 (Annexure P-2).

2. The brief facts leading to the filing of the present writ petition, as have been pleaded in the present petition, are that the petitioner was appointed as Lineman on 14.07.1970 and thereafter he was promoted as JE-II on 04.01.1992 and further to the post of JE-I on 10.07.2008 and retired as such on 31.10.2008. The claim of the petitioner in the present petition is that he is entitled for promotional increment on completion of 23 years of service w.e.f. 01.01.1996 in terms of instructions dated 28.04.1998 (Annexure P-1) and Finance Circular dated 28.07.2000 (Annexure P-2). Since the said benefit was not granted to the petitioner, therefore, he served legal notice dated 12.11.2012 (Annexure P-6) upon the respondents, however, no action has been taken by the respondents on the said legal notice.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner has relied upon the judgment and decree dated 15.12.2009 (Annexure P-4 Colly) whereby appeal preferred by Sukhdev Singh against the judgment and decree passed by the trial Court, partly decreeing his suit, has been allowed by the lower appellate Court and appeal preferred by the Punjab State Electricity Board, being RSA-1780 of 2010, has been dismissed by this Court vide judgment dated 10.05.2010. He further submits that the said judgment(s) have been implemented by the respondents and Sukhdev Singh has been granted the promotional increment on completion of 23 years of service w.e.f. 01.01.1996.

4. Written statement has been filed on behalf of respondents No.1 to 5 wherein it has been stated that date of birth of the petitioner is 09.10.1950 and he was eligible for promotion from JE-II to JE-I on 09.10.2000 but merely getting exemption from departmental examination will not make him entitled for further promotion. However, the factum of grant of similar benefit to Sukhdev Singh has not been denied in the written statement except the fact that he was involved in departmental/disciplinary cases.

5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner is entitled to the grant of promotional increment on completion of 23 years of service in terms of Finance Circular dated 28.07.2000 as he was fulfilling all the conditions mentioned therein. He further submitted that similarly situated person, namely, Sukhdev Singh was also denied the said benefit on the same grounds and he approached the Civil Court and his claim has been accepted by the Court of learned Additional District Judge (Ad-hoc) Fast Track Court, Amritsar, vide judgment and decree dated 15.12.2009. The relevant portion from the said judgment is as under: -

"10. The perusal of the above said circular shows that for the grant of the benefit of promotional increment to any employee on completion of 23 years service, there is no such condition precedent that the employee should pass the departmental examination, which may otherwise be the requirement for the members of the service and even the Member in-charge is authorized to grant exemption to any member of the service from passing the said departmental accounts examination. Therefore, there is no such condition laid down in circular no.20/2000 which has been mentioned by the defendants in para no.2 of the written statement and which has been made the basis of denial of increment to the plaintiff by the defendants. Even otherwise the contention of the learned counsel for the appellant is that on completion of 50 years an official is exempted from said departmental examination and he drew the attention of this court to the version of DW 1 in this