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Judgment
Deepak Gupta, Judge
Short grievance in this petition is that the amendment made to the Recruitment and Promotion Rules for the post of Principal (College Cadre), whereby a condition has been imposed that only Lecturers having 20 years'' regular service in the College Cadre shall be eligible for promotion to the post of Principal is arbitrary, illegal and liable to be set aside. The petitioners are all ex-servicemen. Their grievance is that this condition of 20 years'' regular service in College Cadre has been added in the Rules by amendment only with a view to ensure that the ex-servicemen are ineligible to be promoted as Principals. Prior to this amendment, the relevant condition was three years of regular service in College Cadre.
At the outset, we may note that the condition of 20 years'' regular service in College Cadre is applicable across the board to all the Lecturers and only those Lecturers who have served in the College Cadre for 20 years are eligible to be promoted as Principal. The State in its wisdom, while amending the Rules, has decided to make the qualifying service 20 years instead of three years.
Mr. P.P. Chauhan, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that this condition is arbitrary, since the UGC guidelines only prescribes 10 years'' service in the College Cadre.
What should be the qualifying length of service for an employee to be eligible for promotion to the higher post is something for the employer to decide and unless the decision is arbitrary or capricious, this Court sitting in writ jurisdiction cannot set aside the same only to balance out the equities.
In any event, we are of the view that the service rendered in Army, which is totally unconnected with the service to be rendered in civil services, may or may not be taken into consideration for the purpose of promotion and it is for the State to decide this issue. We are concerned here with the persons who are going to teach and as Principals they will be the In-charge of the educational institutions and the future of the young children lies in their hands. The condition that only that person should be appointed as Principal, who has rendered 20 years'' regular service in College Cadre can by no stretch of imagination be stated to be an arbitrary or capricious condition. If the State in its wisdom decides that the people with longer experience as teachers are to be promoted as Principals, it can not be stated that such a decision is arbitrary.
It has also been urged that though ex-servicemen are being given benefit of the service rendered in the Army for the purpose of fixing their pay-scales on the same analogy, the service rendered in the Army should also be treated to be experience in the concerned category. We can not accept this contention. The wordings of the Rules are very specific which lays down that there must be 20 years'' regular service in college cadre for promotion to the post of Principal. If the contention of the petitioners is to be accepted, then a person who may have rendered 20 years'' regular service in any branch of the Army, which may be totally unconnected with education, would on being appointed as Lecturer immediately be eligible to be promoted as Principal. This could create havoc in the educational system. Therefore, the State, in our view, was justified in amending the Rules and providing 20 years'' service as qualifying service in College Cadre for being promoted as Principal. We may, however, clarify that if the ex-serviceman has rendered service in Army in the educational field equivalent to the College Cadre, then the same may be taken into consideration while counting the qualifying service. With these observations, the present writ petition is dismissed. No order as to costs.