- (1.) We shall deal with the judgment impugned in the Civil Appeal Nos. 8929-8945 of 2012 for the purpose of referring to the facts as well as the date of judgments of this Court which were either followed or referred to or relied upon by the Tribunal as well as the Division Bench. Further, the issue involved in all connected appeals are also identical though some of the appeals have been preferred against the judgments of other High Courts namely, the High Courts of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. There is a transfer petition seeking transfer of a Writ Petition pending before the High Court of Delhi to this Court wherein identical issue is stated to be involved.
(2.) The core issue pertains to the rights of thousands of Junior Telecommunication Officers known as J.T.O. also called Junior Engineers to the next higher post of Sub-Divisional Engineer, also known as, Assistant Engineers and the criteria to be applied namely, whether the order of passing a departmental qualifying examination or the relevant recruitment order/order of entry for the purpose of determining seniority inter se. The issue was earlier dealt with by the Allahabad High Court which came to be considered by this Court and ultimately by a judgment of this Court dated 8th April, 1986, it was held that the order of passing departmental qualifying examination should be the criteria for drawing the Select List for promotion. Subsequently, by the judgment of this Court in Union of India v. Madras Telephones Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Social Welfare Association, 1997 10 SCC 226, this Court held that the order of recruitment/order of entry should be the criteria for promotion.
(3.) By virtue of such diametrical opposite views expressed by this Court in the judgment dated 8th April, 1986 and the one reported in Union of India v. Madras Telephones Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Social Welfare Association, 1997 10 SCC 226which came to be delivered on 13th February, 1997, a question arose as to which of the criteria has to be uniformly applied for effecting the promotion from the post of Junior Engineer to the post of Assistant Engineer. In such a situation, after the judgment of this Court reported in Union of India v. Madras Telephones Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Social Welfare Association, 1997 10 SCC 226, an interlocutory application was filed in this Court viz., IA No. 2 of 1999. The said IA was disposed of along with Contempt Petition (C) No. 121 of 1999 and connected C.A. Nos. 6485-86 of 1998 as well as IA Nos. 4 and 5 of 1999 in the said Civil Appeals. The said detailed judgment came to be rendered on 26th April, 2000 reported in Union of India v. Madras Telephones Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Social Welfare Association, 2000 9 SCC 71and it will be relevant to refer to the said judgment in the forefront as that would form the basis for our conclusion in this batch of cases.;