AFR

Hon'ble Shri Narendra Kumar Vyas, J.

CAV ORDER

1. The petitioner initially filed present petition with prayer to direct the respondents to promote him with effect from the date of recommendation of review DPC placing him above respondents No. 4 and 5 with arrears of salary, seniority for further promotion and Revision of Pension.

2. During pendency of the petition, the respondents No. 1 & 2 have promoted the petitioner vide order dated 29.11.2019 on the post of the Deputy Commissioner in the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Development Department w.e.f. 13.07.2011 notionally by applying the principle of ‘No Work, No Pay’. Accordingly, his seniority, pay, pension and gratuity were revised. As such, this case is now confined to the issue whether principle of ‘No Work, No Pay’ is applicable to the present facts of the case or not?

3. Keeping this issue in mind, the brief facts are being considered which are as under :-

A) The petitioner was working as an Assistant Commissioner in the Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste Development Department and attained the age of superannuation on 31.12.2016. As per the gradation list of Assistant Commissioners issued on 01.04.2008, the petitioner was placed at Serial No. 16, whereas Respondent Nos. 4 and 5 were placed at Serial Nos. 17 and 19 respectively. However, vide order dated 13.07.2011, Respondent Nos. 4 and 5 were promoted to the post of Deputy Commissioner, while the petitioner was denied such promotion.

B) Prior to issuance of the said promotion order (Annexure P-2), the petitioner had submitted representations dated 07.09.2010 and 04.02.2011 seeking consideration for promotion, but the same were not decided. Subsequently, on 31.01.2014, the respondent-State issued an order based on the recommendations of the Departmental Promotion Committee dated 10.07.2012, whereby the petitioner was granted seniority on the post of Assistant Commissioner with retrospective effect from 07.09.2006, and his seniority was fixed above Respondent No. 4, Shri Jitendra Gupta.

C) On 15.07.2014, a proposal was forwarded to Respondent No. 3 for convening a review Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) meeting to consider the case of the petitioner and other eligible officers for promotion to the post of Deputy Commissioner. Pursuant thereto, a review DPC meeting was held on 20.02.2015, wherein it was recommended that the petitioner is fit for promotion and was entitled to be placed above Respondent Nos. 4 and 5, who were admittedly junior to him. The petitioner thereafter submitted several representations dated 15.07.2015, 04.08.2015, 02.09.2015, 24.09.2015, 16.10.2015, 17.11.2015, and 23.11.2015, requesting consideration of his case for promotion.

D) However, no action was taken which compelled the petitioner to file Writ Petition before this Court which was registered as W.P.(S) No.175/2016 and this Court vide order dated 22/07/2016 disposed of the petition directing the State Government to consider the claim of petitioner for promotion and while taking decision recommendations of PSC shall also be kept in view. In pursuance of the order passed by this Hon'ble Court petitioner made representation along with a copy of the order on 01/08/2016, 23/08/2016, 14/09/2016 and 13/06/2016 but nothing happened to those representations. When the respondent authorities did not take any action despite the orders passed by the Court and the representations of the petitioner, he filed a Contempt petition before this Court which was registered as Contempt Petition No. 533/2016. On 11/11/2016, said petition was disposed of stating that there is no specific time frame provided but the order reasonably construed that claim of the petitioner shall be considered as early as possible. Still as nothing moved, yet again, the petitioner made representations on 24/11/2016 and 26/11/2016 with the hope that he would be given promotion before attaining the age of superannuation i.e. on 31/12/2016.

E) About one year later, i.e. o