- (1.) BY the Court.- This Special Appeal has been filed by the respondents of Writ Petition No. 13402 of 2003 that had been filed by 30 petitioners (should be 29 petitioners only as petitioner No. 8 and 30 are same) for setting aside the order dated 12th December, 2002 passed by the U.P. Electricity Services Commission (hereinafter referred to as the 'Commission') in so far as it rejects their claims for absorption as Class IV employees in the U.P. Power Corporation under the special drive to fill up 236 vacancies for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (hereinafter referred to as the 'SC/ST) and 97 vacancies for Other Backward Classes (hereinafter referred to as the 'OBC').
(2.) THE petitioners, who are respondents in this Special Appeal, are retrenched Class IV employees of the erstwhile U.P. State Electricity Board (hereinafter referred to as the 'Board'). A policy decision was taken by the Board on 28th November, 1996 to absorb all the muster-roll/daily wage employees against the existing vacancies who were actually working and had been engaged prior to 4th May, 1990 and in this connection a list of 1133 such employees was furnished. Out of the aforesaid list of 1133 muster roll/daily wage employees that was prepared, 733 employees belonged to the General Category, 299 employees belonged to the OBC Category and 101 belonged to the SC/ST. It was found that even after absorption of such employees, 97 posts for OBC and 236 posts for SC/ST remained to be filled up and, therefore, a communication dated 15th March, 1999 was sent by the Board to all the Chief Engineers to fill up such vacant reserved category posts so that the Reservation Policy was satisfied. Consequently, a communication dated 16th December, 1999 was issued by the Commission requiring all the Chief Engineers to send the forms filled up by such employees by 15th January, 2000 so that they could be considered for absorption. The process was then initiated by the Commission to fill up such vacancies and as the names of the petitioners were not included, they filed Writ Petition No. 9996 of 2002 in which an interim order was passed that the petitioners may be permitted to appear provisionally in the interview test for absorption. The petitioners were considered by the Commission but their names were not included in the list declared on 12th February, 2002 as they did not satisfy the conditions mentioned in the order. This led to the filing of the writ petition out of which the present Special Appeal arises. It needs to be mentioned that petitioner No. 30 was unnecessarily impleaded as a petitioner as he is the same person as petitioner No.8. The petitioners/respondents have filed a chart showing reasons for their rejection and the same are as follows:- Condition Nos. Petitioners/Respondent Nos. 1 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,14,16,17,18 and 19 Below 18 years at the time of their initial engagement. 2. 13,15,20,21,22,23,24,25,26 and 27 Have no knowledge of department work. 3. 28 Could not read and write. 4. 29 37 years of age on 1-1-1999
(3.) AS seen from the above chart, petitioner Nos. 1 to 19 (except petitioner Nos. 13 and 15) have not been absorbed on the ground that they were below 18 years of age on the initial date of engagement as muster-roll/daily wage employees; petitioner Nos. 13, 15 and 20 to 27 have not been absorbed on the ground that they have no knowledge of department work; petitioner No. 28 has not been absorbed on the ground that he has no knowledge of reading and writing in Devanagari Script and petitioner No. 29 has not been absorbed on the ground that he was more than 37 years of age on 1st January, 1999.;