Civil Appeal No. 8616 of 2014 (Arising out of S.L.P. (C) No. 22469 of 2012). Case: State of Jharkhand Vs Bhadey Munda. Supreme Court (India)
| Case Number | Civil Appeal No. 8616 of 2014 (Arising out of S.L.P. (C) No. 22469 of 2012) |
| Counsel | For Appellant: A. Sharan, Sr. Adv. and Kunal Verma, Adv. and For Respondents: Sumeet Gadodia and Kaushik Poddar, Advs. |
| Judges | Madan B. Lokur and C. Nagappan, JJ. |
| Issue | Bihar Reorganization Act, 2000 - Sections 72, 73; States Reorganization Act, 1956 - Section 115(7); Uttar Pradesh Reorganization Act, 2000 - Sections 73, 74 |
| Judgement Date | September 10, 2014 |
| Court | Supreme Court (India) |
Judgment:
Madan B. Lokur, J.
1. Leave granted.
2. From sometime in 1990, both the Respondents were holding the post of Functional Manager in the Department of Industries in the erstwhile State of Bihar. Later, they were working as in-charge General Manager/Deputy Director of Industries with effect from 9th November, 1998 and 1st November, 1996 respectively.
3. On 15th February, 1999 a meeting of the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) was convened for recommending promotions of Functional Managers to the next higher post of General Manager/Deputy Director of Industries. The DPC recommended seven Functional Managers (including both the Respondents) be promoted to the post of General Manager/Deputy Director of Industries.
4. For one reason or another, the recommendation of the DPC was neither accepted nor rejected. Consequently, four of the seven persons recommended for promotion, including Bindeshwari Das, filed a writ petition in the Patna High Court being C.W.J.C. No. 115 of 2004. It was prayed in this writ petition filed against the State of Bihar that a direction be issued to the State of Bihar to promote them to the post of General Manager/Deputy Director of Industries.
5. In the meanwhile, a significant development took place on 15th November, 2000 namely that by virtue of the Bihar Reorganization Act, 2000 (for short the Act), the State of Bihar was bifurcated into the State of Bihar and the State of Jharkhand. However, as mentioned above, Bindeshwari Das and others did not implead the State of Jharkhand as one of the Respondents in their writ petition, apparently because their cadre controlling authority remained the State of Bihar, the service not having been bifurcated at that time.
6. Be that as it may, the writ petition filed by Bindeshwari Das and others was disposed of by the Patna High Court on 30th April, 2004. The operative portion of the order passed by the learned Single Judge of the Patna High Court reads, inter alia, as follows:
The claims of the Petitioners are being admitted by the State authorities for their promotion to the posts of General Managers/Deputy Directors of different District Industries Centers. The State authorities should take a decision in the matter as early as it is possible. It appears that approval is being sought for from the Cabinet Secretariat right from 1999 and one pretext or the other, the matter is being delayed for untenable reasons. It is not the case of the State Respondents that queries made by the Cabinet Secretariat have not been satisfied rather it appears that when the matter was returned with certain queries, the approval was again sought for in 2002 which necessarily implies that the queries were satisfied and the matter was again sent.
Considering the facts and circumstances of the case, the State authorities are directed to take final decision pertaining to promotion of the Petitioners, as referred above, within a period of three months from the date of receipt/production of a copy of this order.
The order of the High Court passed on 30th April, 2004 was not complied with by the State of Bihar.
7. About a year later, sometime in April 2005, the Government of India issued Office Order No. 17(B)/2005 in exercise of powers conferred by Section 72 of the Act. The Order was to the effect that the services of every person mentioned in the annexure to the Order (which included both the Respondents and Bindeshwari Das) who had been working in connection with the functioning of the State of Bihar just before 15th November, 2000 and has been working in the Northern Bihar State or the State of Jharkhand finally since 15th November, 2000 shall be considered to have been allocated to the State of Jharkhand. The result of this Order was that now the State of Jharkhand became the cadre controlling authority of the Respondents leading to necessary consequential steps including the transfer of records etc.
8. The bifurcation of the State of Bihar...
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