IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH ****

CWP No.5166 of 2021 Reserved on : December 09, 2024 Pronounced on : January 08, 2025 Rohtash Kumar Bansal and others ...... Petitioners Versus State of Haryana and others ...... Respondents CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE NAMIT KUMAR Present: Mr. S.K. Malik, Advocate for the petitioners.

Mr. Saurabh Mohunta, DAG, Haryana.

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NAMIT KUMAR, J. (Oral)

1. The petitioners have approached this Court by way of filing the instant petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari seeking quashing of the order dated 01.03.2019 (Annexure P-12), vide which their claim for notional promotion on the post of 'Executive Engineer' w.e.f. 06.08.2014, has been rejected, and further a writ of mandamus has been sought to direct the respondents to notionally promote the petitioners to the post of 'Executive Engineers' from the said date, with all consequential benefits.

2. The brief facts, as have been pleaded in the petition, are that the petitioners, after joining their service in the year 1976, have improved their qualification by passing the degree in Civil Engineering or AMIE equivalent to B.E., while being in service, and were eligible for promotion to the post of SDO, however, they were promoted first as ASDE and as a consequence thereof, their promotion as 'SDO (Civil)' has been delayed and they have been promoted as such on 13.08.2009, 18.08.2009, 01.10.2008, 15.08.2009 and 01.07.2008, respectively. The service conditions of the Engineers 'Group A', Irrigation Department, are governed by 'The Haryana Services of Engineers, Group A, Irrigation Department Act, 2010', which regulate their recruitment and conditions of service and as per Section 6 of the said Act, the petitioners were entitled to be promoted to the post of 'Executive Engineer' and accordingly their names were recommended by the DPC held on 06.08.2014 and thereafter, their names for promotion was sent by the Chief Engineer to the Government for further orders and posting, since 22 posts of promotional quota of respective categories were lying vacant, however, despite recommendations of the DPC and the petitioners being eligible for the said promotion, were not promoted by the Government. It has further been pleaded that the DPC has again recommended the names of the petitioners for their promotion as 'Executive Engineer' on 21.05.2015, when 41 posts of promotional quota were lying vacant, but the respondents delayed their promotion by not issuing the promotion orders on the said recommendation of the DPC, till their superannuation on the post of SDO. It has further been pleaded that the second recommendation dated 21.05.2015 of the DPC was given effect to after the retirement of the petitioners and resultantly, the persons junior to the petitioners, were promoted vide orders dated 02.11.2015. Thereafter, the petitioners served a legal notice dated 25.11.2017 upon the respondents but after finding no results, they approached this Court by way of filing CWP No.24056 of 2018, which was disposed of vide order dated 25.09.2018, with the directions to the respondents to consider and decide the claim of the petitioners, which has been rejected by the respondents, vide order dated 01.03.2019. Hence this petition.

3. In nutshell, the case of the petitioners is that though they were fully eligible for their promotion to the post of 'Executive Engineer' as per Section 6 of ' The Haryana Services of Engineers, Group A, Irrigation Department Act, 2010', but their promotion has not been made on the said post by the competent authority, despite recommendations of the DPC and availability of sufficient number of posts at that point of time, due to which they have suffered great loss.

4. On issuance of notice of motion, written statement on behalf of Respondent Nos.1 to 4 has been filed, wherein it has been stated that the none of the petitioners was eligible for promotion at the time of