Rajinder Kumar vs State of Himachal Pradesh

Deepak Gupta, J.—This appeal by the writ petitioner is directed against the judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 29.7.2009, whereby he dismissed the writ petition filed by the petitioner. The claim of the petitioner, who was initially a Store Munshi, was that since the posts of Store Munshi and Store Clerk have been equated, he was entitled to the benefit of being placed in the category of Clerk with effect from 12.12.1979 and consequently to be designated as Senior Clerk since 50% of the posts of Clerks were designated as Senior Clerks.

We have gone through the Memorandum dated 12.12.1979 and found that as per this Memorandum it was decided that the Store Keepers in various departments working in the pay scale of Rs. 110-250 should be encadred with the posts of clerks. The petitioner, as held by the learned Single Judge, was not even a Store Keeper but was only a Store Munshi. He was not working in the pay scale of Rs. 110-250, but was in the pay scale of Rs. 110-200 as per his averments. Therefore, he did not fulfil any of the conditions of this notification and the learned Single Judge had rightly rejected the case.

At this stage, Mr. Ramakant Sharma urged that in the rejoinder a plea had been taken that the benefit of the Memorandum dated 12.12.1979 had been extended to other persons who were similarly situated as the petitioner. We find that no such argument was raised before the learned Single Judge. In the pleadings, a party may raise number of points, but only points which are raised at the time of arguments before the learned Single Judge, had to be considered by him. There is no averment in the appeal that such argument was actually raised and not answered by the learned Single Judge. Be that as it may, if the learned counsel for the appellant had raised such argument and the same had not been answered, the only proper remedy for the appellant would have been only to file a review petition. Since this point was not raised before the learned Single Judge, we do not permit Mr. Ramakant Sharma, learned counsel for the appellant, to raise this point at this stage. In view of the above discussion, we find that there is no merit in the appeal, which is dismissed accordingly. No costs.