Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta, J. - (1.) The writ petitioner now holding the post of Assistant Director in the establishment of the respondent No.1, has prayed for relief in negative way that not to regularise the respondent Nos. 3 to 16 as well others similarly circumstanced employees for the post of Deputy Directors and Assistant Directors. Short fact as narrated in the writ petition which is more or less admitted by the respondents, is as follows:-
(2.) The respondents No. 3 to 16 were promoted to the post of Deputy Directors (Civil as well as Electrical) from their feeder post of Assistant Director on ad hoc basis and for a period of two years with effect from the respective date of appointment or until further orders which-ever is earlier. The said ad hoc promotion was granted on the conditions that they and each of them will have to pass the departmental and professional examinations as per existing rules within a period of two years from the date of such provisional appointment and upon his failure in passing the said examination within that period he shall be reverted to the post of Assistant Director. It was further conditioned that the appointment would neither confer any right on the incumbent for regular appointment nor is to be construed as determinative of his seniority. The aforesaid persons continued with the aforesaid posts without taking any examination until 1995. Their appointments continued on ad hoc basis even after expiry of two years without reverting them in breach of the conditions. No examination was held nor any rules for conducting examination was framed. Ultimately, on 24th July 1995 comprehensive rule relating to recruitment to the various posts right from the last step of the ladder namely Sub-assistant Engineer and up to the level of Director was made and published. In terms of the aforesaid rules the provision for filling in the post of Deputy Director (Civil and Electrical both) was made by way of promotion. The mode of promotion was provided by way of selection on the basis of seniority-cum-merit. Merit is to be determined from the annual confidential report. It is provided that Assistant Director shall not be eligible for promotion to the post of Deputy Director unless he has completed six years of satisfactory service as Assistant Director (Civil and Electrical) and passed the prescribed examination similar to the departmental and professional examination prevalent in PWD, Government of West Bengal. The above respondents and each of them though were officiating on promotion for a long time not only for the post of Deputy Director but next higher post, were asked to pass the examination in terms of the said recruitment rules. All of them sat for the examination except two candidates, all failed to qualify themselves. After having taken examination as above the said respondents challenged such promotional policy on the basis of the suitability and asked for regularisation of their services and/or promotion to the higher post granted on the basis of ad hoc promotion by filing a writ petition previously. The said writ petition was, however, ultimately withdrawn.
(3.) Thereafter the respondent No.1 appointed one-man committee to review the situation and/or controversy relating to regularisation of the aforesaid respondents. The said Committee commonly known as Gopal Mukherjee Committee recommended for regularisation of the ad-hoc promotion to all the respondent employees and also prescribed different mode of filling up of the post of Assistant Director and Deputy Director and so on. The writ petitioner, though much junior to the respondents No. 3 to 16, has challenged the said recommendation which has since been accepted by the board and further decided to regularise adhoc promotion of the aforesaid respondents.;