Neki Ram and Others vs Ama Ram Godara and Others

G.B.PATTANAIK, J.-The judgment dated 9-12-1993 of the Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana is under challenge in this appeal.

The question for consideration is whether the services rendered by Respondent 1 as an ad hoc employee in the cadre of Clerk can be counted for the purposes of determining his seniority. The said Respondent 1 was appointed as a Clerk on ad hoc basis on 17-7-1973 and with several breaks in the service for different periods continued, till he was regularised on 7-2- 1975. Prior to 1975, there were no recruitment rules and recruitment rules came into force in the year 1975 called "the Haryana State Central Cooperative Bank Services (Common Cadre) Rules, 1975" (hereinafter referred to as "the Rules"). The so-called ad hoc services rendered by Respondent 1 was prior to the aforesaid Rules coming into force. If there would have been no discontinuity in the service, it might have been possible to count the entire period for seniority in the absence of any rule. But in view of the discontinuity, each period must be held to be a fresh service and, therefore, by no stretch of imagination, could the services rendered for the period from 17-7-1973 till 7-2-1975 be counted for the purpose of determining the seniority in the cadre of Clerks. The High Court, in the impugned judgment, relied upon a resolution of the Bank which, according to the Court, was a decision that ad hoc services could be counted for the purpose of seniority. But when we examined the aforesaid resolution, we found that in fact no such final decision has been taken by the Board of the Bank and, therefore, the High Court proceeded on an incorrect premise in coming to the conclusion that in fact a positive resolution has been taken by the Board to count the ad hoc period also for the purposes of seniority. In this view of the matter, the impugned judgment of the High Court must be held to be erroneous and we, therefore, set aside the said judgment dated 9-12-1993 and allow this appeal.