HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NAGESH BHEEMAPAKA WRIT PETITION No. 12189 OF 2020

O R D E R:

Heard Sri Sai Prasen Gundavaram, learned counsel for petitioners, learned Government Pleader for Prohibition & Excise on behalf of Respondents 1 to 4, Sri Vadapalli Ramesh, learned counsel for Respondents 5, 6 and 8.

2. This Writ Petition is filed assailing the legality and validity of the proceedings of Respondent No.2 dated 09.07.2020, finalizing the seniority of absorbed Prohibition & Excise Constables on the basis of a purported merit list, and the consequential proceedings dated 27.07.2020, promoting Respondents 5 to 8 to the post of Prohibition and Excise Head Constables for the panel year 2019–2020. The said proceedings are challenged as being arbitrary, without jurisdiction and in direct contravention of binding service rules, government orders, and judicial directives.

3. Petitioners are several absorbed Excise Constables originally appointed as APSP Constables in 1995 through district-level recruitment. Pursuant to G.O.Ms. No. 1103, dated

17.08.2007, Government ordered absorption of 2,151 APSP Constables into Excise Department, subject to conditions: a) acceptance of Excise Constable pay and allowances, b) forfeiture of APSP benefits, c) applicability of the Presidential Order, 1975, and d). seniority fixation commencing from the last candidate in the existing Excise Constable seniority list, determined based on age. All candidates provided unequivocal and irrevocable options accepting these conditions. Final seniority lists were subsequently issued by the respective District Excise Officers and promotions followed based on age-based seniority lists, which had attained finality and legitimacy under applicable service rules. Despite this, the Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise (Respondent No.1), issued instructions dated 28.01.2020, citing orders of this Court in Writ Petition No. 26855 of 2019 and directed all appointing authorities to re-fix the seniority of absorbed constables based on ‘merit’. Based on these instructions and enclosed battalion-wise merit lists, Respondent No.2 issued provisional seniority list dated 20.02.2020, finalized it on 09.07.2020, and affected promotions on 27.07.2020. Petitioners contend that these actions are unlawful as no such direction for merit-based seniority exists in the Court’s order in the above Writ Petition, which merely directed the competent authority to dispose of Appeals in accordance with law.

4. This Court had passed interim orders in Writ Petitions No. 2823, 9315 and 9393 of 2020, directing that no promotions be affected to the cadre of Head Constables pending adjudication of similar issues. Despite receiving copies of these orders in the first week of July 2020, Respondent No.2 proceeded to finalize the seniority and affect promotions, contending that no specific restraint had been imposed upon him personally. Petitioners state that they were due for promotion to the post of Head Constable based on the original age-based seniority list and that their juniors, including those absorbed in 1996, were wrongly promoted over them. Petitioners were wrongly placed at the bottom of the revised merit-based seniority list, prepared without legal basis or uniformity. The so- called merit lists were neither contemporaneous with recruitment nor sanctioned under any statutory provision or rule.

5. It is stated that APSP recruitment was physical- performance based and no merit ranking existed. The post of APSP Constable was never treated as a state-level post. The argument that non-applicability of Presidential Order elevated battalions to state-level status is without legal foundation. Even in the absence of the Presidential Order, battalions were treated as separate recruitment units comprising one or two districts each. The original seniority list prepared by Respondent No.2 was consistent with law and was based on date of absorption and age. The application of a merit-based criterion after more than a