( 1. ) THE petitioner, an Executive Engineer (Designs) M. G. Basin at Raipur, feels aggrieved by the gradation list of Executive Engineers published on 22-8-1979 and challenges its legality in this petition filed under article 226 of the Constitution of India.

( 2. ) THE petitioner is a direct recruit as an Assistant Engineer having joined the said assignment on 27 11-1961. He was confirmed as an Assistant Engineer with effect from 6-10-1968. The petitioner, unfortunately, could not be promoted as an Executive Engineer in his turn and was superseded by several persons who were junior to him in the cadre of Assistant engineer. However, all these persons, including the petitioner, are still officiating in the cadre of Executive Engineer. They have, however, been shown senior to the petitioner in the said gradation list. The submission of the petitioner is that the seniority in the cadre of Executive Engineer should count not from the date of their officiating promotion in the said cadre, but be the same as in their substantive cadre of Assistant Engineer. In other words, the claim of the petitioner is that even though he has been promoted as an Executive Engineer after those Assistant Engineers who were junior to him in the cadre of Assistant Engineer, yet his seniority in the Executive Engineers cadre should remain the same as in the substantive cadre. Reliance is placed on Rule 12 (c) of M. P. Civil Services (General Conditions of Service) Rules, 1961, (hereinafter referred to as the Rules ). Reliance is also placed on a decision of this Court in Umesh Narayan Mishra v. State of M. P. , M. P No. 181 of 1982 decided on 15-3-1984.

( 3. ) RULE 12 (c) of the Rules, which is relevant for our purposes, reads as follows:-

" (c) Officiating Government Servants.- The inter se seniority of government servants promoted to officiate in a higher service or a higher category of posts shall, during the period of their officiation, be the same as that in their substantive service or grade irrespective of the dates on which they began to officiate in the higher service or grade. "

This rule, according to the petitioner, should be interpreted to mean that inter se seniority of promoted Government servants, as long as they are not confirmed in the promoted cadre, should remain the same as in the lower cadre-irrespective of the date of their promotion. In other words, in case a junior in the substantive lower cadre is found fit and promoted, he should not get the benefit of continuous officiation in the higher cadre. To illustrate, the petitioner claims to be senior to large number of Assistant Engineers in the said cadre who were promoted as Executive Engineers before him. In case, the seniority in the promoted cadre of Executive engineers has to be counted from the date of promotion or continuous officiation, the petitioner would not be senior to them, but in case the inter se seniority of the petitioner and these earlier promoted Executive engineers is to remain the same as in the cadre of Assistant Engineers, the petitioner even though promoted late, would still be senior as an Executive engineer and would be entitled to be considered for further promotion in preference to these persons. The respondent-State has, however, not accepted this interpretation of Rule 12 (c) and has prepared the list based on the date of promotion, which, according to them, is the only legal and constitutional method of determining seniority. 3a. It is now well-settled as a result of several decisions of the supreme Court and this Court that in the absence of any statutory rule or executive memorandum or order laying down a rule for determining seniority in a grade, the normal rule applicable would be to determine seniority on the basis of length of continuous officiation in service- (See: B S. Gupta v. Union of India AIR 1974 S C 1618 at p. 1624. ). In N. K Chauhan v. State of Gujarat AIR 1977 SC 251. it was held as under:-

"seniority, normally, is measured b