- (1.) The validity of appointment of Smt. Pavitar Pal Kaur, who is arrayed as one of the respondents in both the writ petitions to the post of Joint Secretary, Punjab School Education Board (hereinafter referred to as the Board), is under challenge in both these writ petitions filed by the petitioners, who are also working in the office of the same Board.
(2.) For the sake of clarity and convenience, we shall take note of the facts emerging from the records of , which was treated as the lead matter. Thereafter, additional facts that are required to be taken note of from the other writ petition, would be stated by us in order to complete the factual matrix. The petitioner - Sukhvinder Kaur Saroya, in CWP No. 24181 of 2011, was inducted in the Board as Retainer in the year 1993, which position she held upto 28.07.1995, when she was selected and appointed as Legal Advisor in the Board through an open competition. She got promotion as Senior Legal Advisor and Law Officer w.e.f. 09.04.1999 in the grade of Deputy Secretary which position she has occupied ever since. During this period, she has also worked on higher post of Controller of Examination for about 2 1/2 years in its regular grade. She has also worked as Director, Academics and Joint Secretary for some spells. At the time of filing the present writ petition, she was working as Controller of Examination. Though, in the meantime, she was also promoted as Joint Secretary on 02.04.2010 on the basis of seniority-cum-merit, but from this post she was reverted back to her substantive post of Senior Legal Advisor on 08.11.2010, on the ground that her promotion to the post of Joint Secretary had not been approved by the Board of Directors. That reversion is challenged by her which is subject matter of CWP No. 11533 of 2009. However, as on today, she is under suspension and facing departmental inquiry.
(3.) The private respondent who was also working there was appointed as Secretary of the Board, vide order dated 31.08.2006. This appointment to the post of Secretary was assailed by the present petitioner by filing writ petition No. 3206 of 2007. Vide judgement dated 10.03.2009, the learned Single Judge of this Court set aside the appointment of the private respondent to the post of Secretary to the Board holding it to be undesirable and unwarranted. We will refer to this order in some detail at the later stage. Suffice is to state that this order was upheld by the Division Bench of this Court as well. The case of the petitioner herein is that even though the learned Single Judge and the Division Bench, in the earlier case, had passed strictures against the private respondent and labelled the Board as showing undue favour to the private respondent, after the quashing of this appointment of respondent No. 4, as Secretary to the Board, she is rewarded with the promotion to the post of Joint Secretary. It is alleged that even when the private respondent was not eligible for promotion to this post, as per the instant Rules, these Rules were amended to accommodate the private respondent.;