K. Kannan, J. - (1.) THE writ petition is a challenge to the order passed on 17.9.1992 by the respondents denying to the petitioner a consideration of his service from the initial date of appointment on 16.8.1976 for the purpose of computation of his period of service for fitting him in appropriate scales and for promotion. It is an admitted case that the petitioner was appointed after calling for applications for employment in the Electricity Board and offered the post through an order dated 16.8.1976 on scales applicable to the post. In the said order, it was stated that the appointment was temporary and terminable without notice. The services of such person appointed were regularized subsequently through an order dated 10.4.1980 but to take effect not from the date of initial appointment but from 1.4.1978. This is, therefore, taken to be a ground for a contention that a consideration for higher scales or for promotion could be only from the date of regular appointment and the period of ad hoc service cannot be counted.
(2.) THE counsel for the petitioner points out that the order of appointment initially made was through a regular recruitment process, after following all the formalities for public appointment and they are put on regular scales attached to the post. The nomenclature of the nature of appointment as ad hoc was in the manner stating that it could be subject to regularization afterwards and if not regularized, he could have been terminated at any time. The thrust of the argument, however, is that if there is no break in service and the ad hoc service itself was regularized there could not have been arbitrary fixation of date as 1.4.1978 as the date from when the petitioner could be treated as regularized. The counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents refers to me to the decision of the Supreme Court in Punjab State Electricity Board and others Versus Jagjiwan Ram and others 2009(5) SLR 499 that was considering the case of time bound promotion through a scheme for employees who were stagnating and the Supreme Court held that ad hoc and work charged employees were not entitled to benefit of such time bound promotion scales or promotional increments. I find the reliance on this judgment to be wholly untenable and attempt to mislead the court. The Supreme Court was considering a case of persons who were not regular employees and it was not considering the case of the persons who had been brought through a regular recruitment process. A scheme that provided for a time bound promotion on regular scale was required to fulfill all the details of what the scheme itself envisaged and, therefore, if the scheme restricted the applicability to only certain classes of persons, there could be no deviation from the tenor of the scheme. This will have no application in a situation where it is not brought before this court by the Electricity Board that there was merely a temporary officiation of persons being appointed as a stop gap arrangement and that a regular selection process was going to be undertaken later. If the initial appointment was in a regular vacancy with the scales applicable to the post after a proper selection process, a regularization that takes place without a break must be taken as resulting in the period of service, for the purpose of scales and for promotion, to be effective from the date of initial entry brought through a regular recruitment process. If it were not be so, it should only be taken as arbitrary that would fall foul of Article 14 of the Constitution. The employer cannot have a whimsical date to take as a date of regularization and to deny an employee the benefit of service which he rendered in a regular post from the date when he entered the service. I have not been brought through any rules that allows for the Electricity Board to pick their own suitable dates irrespective of how the selection was made initially, even if the selection was made by a regular recruitment.
(3.) THE impugned order is erroneous and arbitrary and it is set aside. The writ petition is allowed and the petitioner is entitled to all the consequential benefits treating the service period as commencing from the date when he joined the service pursuant to the order dated 16.8.1976. The petition is allowed with costs of Rs. 10,000/ - against the electricity Board.;