RAM CHANDRA VYAS Vs. STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH AND ANOTHER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) JUDGEMENT The petitioner was appointed the Secretary of the Municipal Board of Allahabad (now Nagar Mahapalika, Allahabad) on 13-8-1946 on probation on a salary of Rs. 200/- per month and was confirmed on 13-8-1947 when he was drawing Rs. 210/- per month. He was appointed on 12-12-1957 as Additional Executive Officer of the Municipal Board on a salary of Rs. 500-50-750 EB-1000. The post on which he was appointed on 12-12-1957 was created on a temporary basis by the Administrator, Allahabad, who also invested the petitioner with power to perform the functions and to discharge the duties of an Executive Officer in respect of the department under his charge. This post was created after the matter had been referred to the Government and sanction obtained from it to the creation of the post. A letter dated 6-12-1957 from the Commissioner, Local Bodies, and Secretary, L. S. G. Branch, U. P. Lucknow, to the Administrator, Municipal Board, Allahabad, indicating that the creation of the temporary post was sanctioned, states that the petitioners appointment will be a purely temporary arrangement and that, so long as the post of the Additional Executive Officer is continued, the post of the Secretary in the Municipal Board will be kept in abeyance with the petitioners lien on it.

(2.) IN the course of his service with the Municipal Board, Allahabad, the petitioner was given a chance to officiate as an Executive Officer for a short period of few weeks from 12-1-1948 to 17-2-1948 drawing salary at the rate of Rs. 750/-per month which was the minimum pay then for the Executive Officer of Allahabad Municipal Board. The petitioner reverted to his post of Secretary when the Executive Officer, who had gone on leave, returned. The petitioner, however, was made a permanent Secretary of the Municipal Board drawing a salary of Rs. 260/- per month on 1-1-1950. He also officiated on three other occasions as the Executive Officer, the first of these was from 13-2-1950, the second was from 1-4-1950, and the third was from 9-6-1952, before he was appointed an Additional Executive Officer on 12-12-1957. On each of the three last mentioned occasions, when the petitioner officiated as Executive Officer for short periods, the petitioner drew the pay of the Secretary in substantive capacity together with an additional salary for officiating as Executive Officer to make up Rs. 500/-. In other words, on the three occasions following the solitary occasion which arose on 12-1-1948, when the petitioner drew salary at the rate of Rs. 750/- per month, and before the appointment of the petitioner on 12-12-1957 substantively as an Additional Executive Officer, occupying a temporary post, the petitioner drew only Rs. 500/- per month, altogether, while officiating as Executive Officer. On 19-9-1960, when the petitioner was drawing Rs. 650/- per month, the petitioners post of Additional Executive Officer was given a new designation:"Up Nagar Adhikari II. " The petitioner has been getting his increments at the rate of Rs. 50/- per year.

(3.) THE first question which arises in this case is whether the Fundamental Rule 22, relied upon by the petitioner, is applicable at all to the Executive Officer of a Municipal Board. The relevant part of Section 241(2) of the Government of India Act, 1935, under which the Fundamental Rules were made, reads: