- (1.) Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned Standing Counsel.
(2.) This petition has been filed in the nature of Public Interest Litigation. Public Interest Litigation is not maintainable in service matters. The law in this regard has been settled by the apex court in the case of R.K. Jain vs. Union of India, 1993 4 SCC 119. In the said case, the apex court in Para-74 held as under: "74. Shri Harish Chander, admittedly was the Senior Vice-President at the relevant time. The contention of Sri Thakur of the need to evaluate the comparative merits of Mr. Harish Chander and Mr. Kalyansundaram a seniormost member for appointment as President would not be gone into in a public interest litigation. Only in a proceedings initiated by an aggrieved person it may be open to be considered. This writ petition is also not a writ of quo warranto. In service jurisprudence it is settled law that it is for the aggrieved person i.e. non-appointee to assail the legality of the offending action. Third party has no locus standi to canvass the legality or correctness of the action. Only public law declaration would be made at the behest of the petitioner, a public-spirited person."
(3.) It is further to be noted that petitioners are association of executive officers and they are holding the post of executive officer. Their grievance appears to be that the proviso to Rule-6 of the U.P. Palika (Centralized) Service Rules, 1966 is not complied with and the State Government is posting the person on the post of executive officer. Rule 6 itself gives opportunity to the government to manage the situation for time being if regularly selected candidates are not available and in all likelihood, the selected candidates would be available. The process was initiated in the year 2014 through U.P. Public Service Commission and the result has not been finalized up till now. The State Government while considering the issue in question came to the conclusion that 3 or 4 or 5 municipal local bodies are being managed by one executive officer and on account of that, development work is suffering and in order to manage the situation so that development work may not hamper, the State Government proposed to post certain persons on the post of executive officer on deputation. Looking to the anomalous situation, if the State Government has taken a decision to post certain persons on the post of executive officer, the said decision cannot be faulted in any manner.;