- (1.) The present order disposes of a bunch of seven Letters Patent Appeals as also a writ petition bearing LPA Nos.1400, 1559, 1825, 1826, 1993, 2002 of 2013, LPA No.329 of 2014 and CWP No.887 of 2008 as the issue raised in all the matters is the same. For the sake of convenience, facts have been extracted from LPA No.1400 of 2013 (The State of Punjab v. Amarjit Singh and others).
(2.) The respondents are employees of the Punjab State Tubewell Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as "the Corporation"). They approached this Court primarily with a grievance that even when sufficient number of employees of the Corporation like the respondents are available and who are fit for promotion to the next higher post, they are denied the opportunity for such promotion as the promotional posts are being filled up on deputation from the Irrigation Department of the State of Punjab. This is being done as per directions issued from time to time by the State of Punjab to fill up the posts in the Corporation on deputation basis from officers of the Irrigation Department of the State of Punjab. The respondents questioned the power of the State to issue such directions to the Corporation as according to them the corporation is an autonomous body and capable of taking its own decisions under its Memorandum and Articles of Association. The respondents further say that though there is a power with the State of Punjab under Article 133 of the Articles of Association of the Corporation to issue directions to the Corporation but these directives are only in matters of broad policy. According to the respondents, the directions by the State of Punjab to fill up posts of the Corporation by way of deputation or not matters of broad policy and therefore, not sustainable in law.
(3.) The matter was gone into by a learned Single Judge of this Court and after consideration the entire gamut of facts as also the law on the subject, the learned Single Judge quashed the directions given by the State of Punjab to fill up posts in the Corporation on deputation basis. The learned Single Judge held as under: "4. I have deliberated on the issue whether the prescription of a broad percentage of quota for deputation or other such matters are not essentially issues of policy that the Court will not interfere. Indeed the counsel for the Corporation himself pleads that it is not as if the Government was interfering with the day to day activity of who was to be appointed to a particular post or meddling with the affairs of service of the workers. It has set out a long term policy by prescribing certain percentage of quota of employees from the State who would fill up the post of the Corporation as deputationists. The issue of what constitutes the service matter is not to be rigidly as a policy without really trenching upon the issues of service. It is again not to be seen as though that it is only the day to day functioning of the workers or regulation of the persons who were appointed to a particular post that could be understood as interfering with matters of service. The policy could under normal circumstances be seen as setting boundaries within which a corporation could perform. In this case, if the State was laying down a policy that whenever vacancies exist and if there were not sufficient number of persons in the Corporation it self to fill up the posts, there could be deputation which could be drawn to a particular percentage, it could be stated that the State was laying down a broad policy for its enforcement. If the State was literally charting down a broad policy for its enforcement. If the State was literally charting out a project as to how the Corporation shall fill up the posts and to what numbers, then the Corporation was surely allowing itself to be completely abrogated in its institutional autonomy and being led, blind-folded by State fiat. This is precisely the manner in which the decisions of this Court referred to above have understood, when they were interfering with directives from the State as to what shall be the percentage of benefit that they will obtain for housing and what shall be the allowances and concessions which employees would draw. There are indeed also matters of policy but they had a relevance to the day to day working and service conditions. Here, in this case, the petitioners have an immediate grievance that the Corporation was simply rejecting the claims to promotion on the ground that they had to observe the State directive to fill up the broad percentage for representation of State deputationists. As I have observed already, the objection cannot be that there could be no deputationist to man the particular posts. There has to be an objective assessment made if a broad policy is given to the Corporation to be followed and the Corporation is bound to deliberate the issue of the feasibility in the light of the better administration of the Corporation. At least when the workers of this Corporation were raising an issue that their claims must be considered, the Corporation could not wear the blinkers set by the State and plead in defence that they had to stick to the State directives. That would only mean that the Corporation was not prepared to take an objective decision and felt crippled in its own functioning by the State directives. 5. The arguments by the counsel for the Corporation that the Corporation has literally no surplus finance or their own financial strength to discard the State directives only shows the abysmal servility to which the Corporation has allowed its own functioning. I am not examining whether such a Corporation should wind up and allow for State to take over as its own department. At least in these writ petitions when the petitioners were making an issue that their interests were not being sufficiently protected and deputationists from the State service were likely to displace them completely, there was a good enough reason for the State and Corporation to set their own ways in order and chart out the course of action and define the respective areas of control. That does not appear to have happened and I find the Corporation's response has been merely anaemic without any rational justification for the way they have allowed themselves to be rendered effete. 6. The directives of the State which are made the subject of challenge in the writ petition cannot be allowed and they are quashed. I take notice of the fact that the petitioners have come by benefit of promotion during the pendency of the writ petition and these observations do not, however, become purely academic for it is a decision rendered in the light of the circumstances that the appointments were made subject to the decision of this Court and is hereby ruled that the State directives were not legal and enforceable. The Corporation shall set its own terms of service without in any way allowing the State to trench upon its activities on a day to day basis or on its long term. 7. The petitioners have in this case been assigned to the posts of Assistant Engineer on their own pay-scale and seniority as Assistant Engineer. The communication issued on 16.01.1998 states that it is only a temporary arrangement till the appointment of deputationists. Since I have held that quota prescribed by the State for deputationists without the Corporation itself taking an objective decision is not valid, the appointments made to the post allowing for persons to hold temporary charge must be taken as holding the post in the vacancies available for them and the respondents are bound to consider the appointment as made for post to which the petitioners were entitled. The scales for the promotion post shall be from that day when they held current duty charge and all the consequential benefits shall be calculated and released to them within a period of 12 weeks from the date of receipt of copy of the order.";