DECISION The respondent, who was employed as a Junior Clerk in the WAPDA Organization at Sukkur, filed a grievance petition before the learned Seventh Labour Court claiming promotion to the next higher post of accounts clerk on the strength of his having passed the Intermediate Examination and having served in the Department for over three years. The learned Labour Court allowed the respondent's grievance petition and directed the WAPDA to promote the respondent as accounts clerk mainly on the strength of the remark of the Reporting Officer of the respondent for the year 1976-77 that the respondent was fit for promotion. The learned Labour Court also appears to have been influenced in reaching this decision by two other circumstances, the first being the fact that there was some dispute between the Union, of which the respondent was an office-bearer, and the Accountant of the WAPDA, who had made an adverse remark against the respondent in the latter's C.R., and the second being the admission of the Accounts Assistant of the WAPDA, Peer Bux, who had admitted that the policy in the WAPDA was that the Junior Clerk, who passes the F. A./F.
Sc./Inter Corn. Examination and is also selected by the Selection Board, is ordinarily promoted as Accounts Clerk. The appellants being aggrieved by the said decision of the learned Labour Court have come in appeal to this Tribunal.
2. Section 25-A, I.R.O., provides that a grievance petition can be filed by a worker only in respect of any right, guaranteed or secured to him by or under any law or any award or a settlement for the time being in force. The respondent, thus could file a grievance petition in respect of his claim to promotion as Accounts Clerk if he was entitled under the Rules to be promoted to the said post.
The WA FDA Accounts Service Rules, 1966, which are still in force, have been produced before me by Mr. S.F. Abdullah, the learned counsel for the appellant. The said Rules, as amended in February, 1978, provide that an appointment to the post of accounts clerk shall be made by promotion from Junior Clerks/Typist who have passed the Departmental Promotion Examination prescribed for accounts clerks and in case no eligible clerks are available then by initial recruitment. The respondent does not claim that be has passed the Departmental Promotion Examination. Mr. Nizamuddin Baloch, the learned counsel for the respondent, submitted that no such examination has been held since some time. That may be so, but since the passing of such an examination is a prescribed qualification for eligibility to promotion to the post of accounts clerk and since admittedly the respondent has not passed the said examination he is clearly not even eligible under the said Rules to be promoted to the post of accounts clerk. Furthermore, even if he passes the said examination he merely becomes eligible for promotion to the said post but not entitled to such a promotion. The distinction between mere eligibility and entitlement to promotion has been succinctly brought out in the case of Mutaqqi Hussain v. Province of Sind where it was observed as follows :- "In my opinion the word "eligible" in the sense in which it is used in section 9 of the Sind Civil Servants Act, 1973, means only legally qualified to be promoted but does not mean entitled to or having a vested right to promotion."
3. For the foregoing reasons, I find myself unable to concur in the view taken by the learned Labour Court, I would, accordingly, set aside the impugned decision and allow the appeal. PLD 1978 Kar. 703