The grant of main relief sought in a writ petition at the interlocutory stage is not permissible unless there are special reasons to justify it.

S. S. Sodhi, J.

1. THERE is a settled and well established rule of practice which by convention and long usage has almost hardened into a rule of law, namely, that relief asked for and available at the stage of final disposal of writ proceedings, is not, except for special reasons, to be granted as interim relief at the interlocutory stage. Blatant disregard of this rule is revealed here.

2. TO give the relevant factual background, the writ petitioners Dayavati Khanna while holding the post of Joint Director of Education was on March 20 1991 given additional charge of looking after the work also of the Additional Director of Education, which she has been doing ever since.

In the writ petition, the prayer' of Dayavati Khanna was "pay salary to the petitioner of the post of Additional Director of Education with effect from 20th March, 1991."

3. WHEN the matter came up before the learned Single Judge for interim relief, by his order of April 29, 1993 (the learned Single Judge directed that Dayvati Khanna be paid salary as Additional Director with effect from March 20, 1991 namely, the main relief in the writ petition. Not only this, the learned Single Judge went further and directed the issuance of a regular appointment order to Dayavati Khanna for the post of Additional Director. It deserves to be pointed out here that there was no such prayer in the writ petition nor was it the ease of Dayavati Khanna that she had been regularly appointed to the post of Additional Director or was by seniority or selection entitled to be appointed as such.

4. WHEN the matter next came up before the learned Single Judge on October 13, 1993 the order shows that a direction was issued for the payment of salary as Additional Director to Dayavati Khanna.

There is then the. order January 20, 1994 whereby the learned Single Judge directed compliance with his earlier order of April 29, 1993, namely, payment of salary as Additional Director to Dayavati Khanna with effect from 20th March, 1991, This order was directed to be complied with within two weeks.

5. IN dealing with this matter, It would be relevant to refer here to the Judgment of the Division Bench in Committee of Management v. Sushil Kumar Sharma, 1993 (2) UP LB EC 1263 where in a writ petition seeking the issue of an appointment letter to the post of Lecturer and for payment of salary for that post with effect from the date specified therein, the learned Single Judge had, while disposing of stay application, passed an order' granting precisely these two reliefs. Following' the Judgment of the Supreme Court in U. P. Junior Doctor's Action Committee v. Dr. B. Sheetal Nandwani, JT 1992 (1) SC 571, it was held "it lis a well known rule of practice and procedure that at interlocutory stage a relief which is asked for and is available at the disposal of the matter is not granted unless there is any special reason to be indicated in clear term."

6. BEFORE proceeding further, it deserves mention that Counsel for Dayavati Khanna was unable to point to any special reason to justify Dayavati Khanna being granted, at the interlocutory stage, the main relief sought in the writ petition and in fact even more the issuance of an appointment letter to her for the post of Additional Director, a relief as mentioned earlier, not even asked for in the writ petition.

Faced with this situation, Mr, L. P. Naithani, Counsel for the Dayavati Khanna, sought to put-forth the wholly untenable contention, that no special appeal lay against the impugned order. The argument being that a Special appeal would be competent only from an order passed in a writ petition which is required to be heard by a Single Judge but not when an order is passed by a Single judge in a writ petition cognizable by a Division Bench. In other words, in a writ petition cognizable by a Division Bench no special appeal lies against an order passed by a Single Judge while dealing with interim matters. Counsel could, however, point no rule or