Hon'ble Dilip Gupta - (1.) THE petitioners, who have been working as Seasonal Collection Amins in District Fatehpur, have filed this petition for quashing the order dated 15th July, 2009 passed by the District Magistrate, Fatehpur by which the claim of the petitioners for grant of appointment as Collection Amin in accordance with the provisions of the U.P. Collection Amins' Service Rules, 1974 (hereinafter referred to as the 'Rules') has been rejected as the percentage of recovery made by them during the last four Fasals was found to be less than 70%.
(2.) IT is stated that petitioner No. 1 was engaged as Seasonal Collection Amin on 4th February, 1991, petitioner No. 2 was engaged as Seasonal Collection Amin on 16th January, 1987'and petitioner No. 3 was engaged as Seasonal Collection Amin on 11th December, 2000. The claim for appointment as Collection Amin is based on Rule 5 of the Rules and the petitioners claim that they satisfy the conditions stipulated therein. However, since the petitioners were not appointed as Collection Amin, they and certain other persons filed Writ Petition No. 53307 of 2007 (Ram Naresh and others v. State of U.P. and others) which was disposed of by the judgment and order dated 5th May, 2009 with the following observations : "Taking into account rival submissions of the contesting parties and going through the materials on record, it is evident that a District Level Selection Committee is already screening the candidates for regularization of their services and a decision is to be taken for regularization of Seasonal Collection Ameens. IT is expected from the respondent Nos. 2 and 3 to complete the process expeditiously, preferably within six weeks from the date of presentation of a certified copy of this order. Accordingly, the writ petition is disposed of with the direction to the District Magistrate, Fatehpur and the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Tehsil Khaga, District Fatehpur to expedite the selection process by completing the selection process and by passing appropriate orders on receiving the recommendations of the District Level Selection Committee within the aforementioned stipulated period of six weeks." It is pursuant to the aforesaid judgment that the District Magistrate examined the claim of the petitioners and rejected it by holding that none of them were entitled to be appointed as Collection Amin as the percentage of recovery during the last four Fasals was less than 70%. It is this order that has been impugned in the present petition. Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioners has placed before the Court the seniority list forwarded by the District Magistrate, Fatehpur with his letter dated 10th June, 2009 to the State Government and has pointed out that in the said list, the names of petitioner Nos. 1, 2 and 3 find place at serial Nos. 20, 27 and 63 respectively and the average recovery made by the three petitioners during the last four Fasals have been shown as 87%, 76% and 74% respectively, but in the order dated 15th July, 2009 passed by the District Magistrate, the average percentage of recovery has been shown as 33%, 46% and 12% respectively. It is his submission that such variation has taken place because the percentage of recovery in the impugned order of the District Magistrate has been calculated on the basis of the entries existing in the receipt book, while it is required to be calculated from the cash book entries, which procedure was correctly followed by the District Magistrate while preparing the list dated 10th July, 2009. It is his submission that the actual recovery is reflected in the cash book entries and not the receipt book and he has pointed out that if the recovery percentage is calculated on the basis of the entries existing in the cash book, then the petitioners will satisfy the conditions stipulated in Rule 5 of the Rules and will be entitled for appointment as Collection Amin but the District Magistrate wrongly calculated the percentage of recovery on the basis of the entries made in the receipt book.
(3.) LEARNED Standing Counsel appearing for the respondents, however, submitted that there is no infirmity in the impugned order since the percentage of recovery for the previous four Fasals is less than 70% in accordance with the guidelines issued by the Board of Revenue that the percentage of recovery has to be calculated on the basis of the cash receipt and the deposits made by the debtors directly in tahsil or the concerned department cannot be taken into consideration for the purposes of calculating the percentage of recovery for considering cases for appointment under Rule 5 of the Rules. I have considered the submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the parties.;