K.N.Goyal, J. - (1.) In this bunch of writ petitions promotions from the posts of Junior Engineers in the Electrical and Mechanical Wings of P. W. D. to the posts of Assistant Engineers are in issue.
(2.) The posts of Assistant Engineers are filled mainly by direct recruitment, but 25 per cent, and by a subsequent Government decision 30 per cent posts were to be filled by promotion from amongst Junior Engineers and Computers working in the department.
(3.) Regular promotions had not been made from the post of Junior Engineer to post of Assistant Engineer for quite a long time, to be precise, from "recruitment year" 1968-69 onwards. When the cardre of Assistant Engineer was originally created, there was no Electrical or Mechanical wing. Accordingly when the Service Rules for Assistant Engineers Service were framed in 1936 (for short, the 1936 Rules), the qualifications mentioned 'or appointment had no reference to the Electrical and Mechanical wing but referred only to Civil Engineering. However, in practice the same rules were being mutalis mutandis followed for appointment to the Electrical and Machanical branches as well. These rules provided that exceptional merit would be the criterion for promotion from among overseers and computers to the posts of Assistant Engineers. The 1936 Rules were, however, amended in 1969. Even at that time, while making amendments in Rule 9 of the 1936 Rules, which related to technical qualifications, no specific mention of any of the qualification in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering was made. Those Rules and the amendments made therein were the subject matter of a bunch of writ petitions, the leading ease being Vijai Naresh Mittal v. State of U.P., Writ Petition No. 2447 of 1980, decided on 14.1.82 (All). decided by a Bench of this Court of which one of us (Goyal, J.) was a member. In that decision it was inter alia, held that the amendments made in Rules 3 (c), 5 and 6 in 1969 were void and that as the old Rules also stood wiped out, there remained i no corresponding Rules in the field, Rule 5 of the 1936 Rules deal with sources of recruitment, while Rule 6 dealt with the numbers to be recruited from each source. Rule 23 which dealt with seniority was also struck down. As already observed, Rule 9 which dealt with technical qualifications was already inapplicable to Electrical and Mechanical Wings. Thus in effect there were no statutory rules which could govern the promotion from the posts of Junior Engineers to the posts of Assistant Engineers in respect of Electrical and Mechanical Wings of P.W.D.;