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IN THE HIGH COURT OF TRIPURA, AGARTALA
T. Vaiphei, J.
Sri. Shibajyoti Bhattacharjee, S/O Late Satya Ranjan Bhattacharjee and Others – Petitioners
Versus
The State of Tripura represented by the Secretary to the Department of Power and Others – Respondents
WP(C) No.381 to 383 OF 2006, 134, 136 OF 2007
Decided On : 04-01-2017
Seniority - Tripura Power Engineering Service - Rule 35 of TPES Rules, 1987 - The petitioners were appointed as Junior Engineers on fixed pay basis and were later granted regular pay scale. However, their services were encadred in the Tripura Power Engineering Service only in 2007. The court held that their seniority can be counted only from the date of their encadrement in the TPES and not from the date of their initial appointment. The court also dismissed their claim for the benefit of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) as they were not entitled to it before their encadrement.
Fact of the Case:
The petitioners were appointed as Junior Engineers on fixed pay basis and were later granted regular pay scale. They sought seniority from the date of their initial appointment and claimed the benefit of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS).
Finding of the Court:
The court held that the petitioners' seniority can be counted only from the date of their encadrement in the Tripura Power Engineering Service and not from the date of their initial appointment. The court also dismissed their claim for the benefit of CAS as they were not entitled to it before their encadrement.
Issues: The main issue was the determination of the petitioners' seniority and their entitlement to the benefit of Career Advancement Scheme (CAS).
Ratio Decidendi: The court ruled that the petitioners' seniority can be counted only from the date of their encadrement in the Tripura Power Engineering Service and not from the date of their initial appointment. The court also dismissed their claim for the benefit of CAS as they were not entitled to it before their encadrement.
Final Decision: The court dismissed the writ petitions and directed the parties to bear their respective costs. It also made clear that the respondent authorities could count the past services of the petitioners prior to their encadrement for the purpose of seniority without affecting the rights of third parties such as those Junior Engineers who were appointed in accordance with the recruitment rules.
This batch of five writ petitions involving a common of facts and of law were taken up together for joint hearing, and are now being disposed of by this common judgment.
2. At the outset, I wish to express my annoyance with the drafting of the writ petition, which runs into 50 pages, that too, without its annexures and of the additional counter affidavit filed by the petitioner, which is spanning 39 pages also without its annexures. Writ petition should be a concise statement of facts and of law, to the point, and yet comprehensive enough to cover all the facts relevant for the decision. It has be to be drafted carefully and after due application of mind. It should be written in such a manner that it can be easily understood by the reader; it is not enough that the writer understands what has drafted. I went through the voluminous writ petition simply because I could not leave out the important facts of the petitioners. It is distressing to note that the contents are repetitive and argumentative, which could have been reserved for oral submissions. One must understand that I am not dealing with the case of the petitioners alone and, therefore, have limited time to prepare the judgment for one case or a group of cases. I hope and trust that a litigant public shall hereafter make an endeavour to confine their pleadings only to the facts in issue. One should be acquainted with the art of summary writings/précis writings/substance writings to save the time of Courts.
3. To come to the case at hand, to avoid unnecessary complications, I will first deal with the facts of W.P.(C) No.136 of 2006, decide the same and apply my decision thereon, so far as possible, to the facts of the remaining cases. There are 27 petitioners in this writ petition, and some of them are presently under the Power Department of the State of Tripura, while the rest were absorbed to the Tripura State Electricity Corporation Ltd., Agartala. The names and their respective dates of initial appointment as fixed pay Junior Engineers in the Power Department, Government of Tripura are shown below :
Sl. No.
Names
Date of appointment
1.
Sri Dipak Chandra Lodh
06-4-1990
2.
Sri Pijush Kanti Chakraborty
14-11-1990
3.
Sri Partha Pratim Chakraborty
06-4-1990
4.
Sri Arumoy Saha
07-4-1990
5.
Sri Ajay Das
12-11-1990
6.
Sri Sanjib Datta
16-11-1990
7.
Sri Subrata Deb
05-3-1990
8.
Sri Debabrata Majumder
11-11-1990
9.
Sri Asim Bhowmik
09-4-1990
10.
Sri Debabrata Pal
09-11-1990
11.
Sri Pijush Kanti Paul
06-4-1990
12.
Sri Sushanta Das
06-4-1990
13.
Sri Dilip Kumar Debnath
06-4-1990
14.
Sri Sandip Gan Choudhuri
09-11-1990
15.
Smt. Champakali Biswas
09-11-1990
16.
Sri Sankar Choudhuri
07-4-1990
17.
Sri Sanjib Nandy Majumder
01-12-1990
18.
Sri Arindam Deb
14-11-1990
19.
Sri Sankar Deb
09-4-1990
20.
Sri Krishnendu De
30-11-1990
21.
Sri Pradip Kar
09-4-1990
22.
Sri Dipankar Bhattacharjee
24-4-1992
23.
Sri Sankar Gupta
06-4-1990
24.
Smt. Sujapa Hom Ray
07-4-1990
25.
Smt. Sibani Das
18-6-1992
26.
Sri Sumit Dasgupta
13-11-1990
27.
Smt. Soma Dasgupta
18-06-1992
4. On 26-9-1989, the respondent No. 3 issued the employment notice inviting applications from interested candidates for filling up several temporary posts of Junior Engineer (Electrical/Mechanical) on a fixed pay of Rs.1,000/- per month for degree holders and a fixed pay of Rs.800/- for diploma holders. The petitioners appeared in the interview (there was no written examination), were selected and were thereafter appointed in the posts of Junior Engineers (Electrical/Mechanical) for degree holders under the Department of Power, Government of Tripura in the fixed pay of Rs.1,000/- per month. After their temporary services were extended for one year, the State-re
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