S. ABDUL JABBAR KHAN (CHAIRMAN).-- Fazal Karim Chaudhri has filed this appeal under section 4 of the Punjab Service Tribunals Act, 1974, against the order, dated 30-5-1982 of the Livestock and Dairy Development Department conveyed to the appellant, whereby they have wrongly fixed the seniority of the appellant at serial No. 6 in the impugned seniority list of Grade 18 Officers of the Directorate of Livestock Production Research Institute Bahadurnagar (Okara) as it stood on 31-1- 1980 instead of his actual/due seniority falling at serial No. 2 of the same Seniority List, ahead, of respondents Nos. 2 to 5.
2. By virtue of this appeal, he has prayed that the impugned seniority list be set aside and he may be placed at serial No.2 of the said list.
3. Brief facts of the case are that the appellant was initially recruited as Assistant Surgeon in March, 1955 and was placed at the disposal of Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry Lahore, where he worked as such upto August, 1958. In February, 1961, he was appointed as a temporary Deputy Superintendent (Class II) Dadu Cattle Farm (Sind) then part of West Pakistan Province. The appellant continued there uptill 31-7-1961, and on the abolition of the said post, he was posted as Assistant Superintendent, Nutrition, at the said Farm w.e.f. 1-8-1961. As a result of re-organization of the Provincial Department in 1962, the appellant was posted as Biological Production Officer in the Bureau of Diease Investigation and Biological Production (now V.R.I.), Lahore, where he joined on 7- 6-1962. It was in August 1962, he at his own request, was transferred as Assistant Director, Animal Husbandry and placed at the disposal of Director, Animal Husbandry, Multan Region, vide order dated 21-9-1962. During the years 1964-66, the appellant obtained his Post-graduate qualifications (D.T.V.M.) from the University of Edinburgh U.K. In Veterinary Tropical Medicine and thereafter the appellant returned to the same post. In the year 1972, as a matter of general policy, all the Class II posts in the Department were upgraded to Class I junior. During the course of his service, the appellant was not considered for promotion to the next higher grade but his juniors were promoted to Class I senior Grade-18. The appellant made a number of representations stating his grievance, that he being a senior member of service, he should (lave been promoted to Grade-18, from the date, his juniors were so promoted, but nothing came out from the said representations. In the year 1977, the appellant joined Livestock Production Research Institute, Bahadurnagar, and consented to serve under certain conditions, which he made clear in his letter dated 29-10-1977. Although the appellant now stands upgraded to Grade-18 yet his seniority has not been given due consideration and he has been placed in the seniority list at No.6, whereas according to his calculation, he should have been placed at serial No.2. As no response was made to his representation, the appellant moved a Writ Petition No. 1107 of 1982, before the Lahore High Court and after an undertaking was given by the Advocate-General that the representation would be decided within a period of 2 months he withdrew the said writ petition. However, on 30-5-1982, the Government of the Punjab informed the appellant that his representation has been turned down. Hence this appeal.
4. We have heard the learned counsel for the appellant as well as learned District Attorney and learned counsel for the respondents, and have perused the record of this case carefully with their assistance.
5. Learned counsel for the appellant has submitted that at the time of re-organization of 1962, the Class II post, which the appellant was holding fell to the Research Section under the Directorate of Livestock Farms. According to the learned counsel for the appellant, instead of allowing him to continue in the same farm service, the appellant was transferred and posted as Biological Production Officer, Class I in the Bureau of Disease Investigation and Biological Production, Lahore on 7-6-1962. According to learned counsel these appointments were mala fide and in-fact to injure the right, of the appellant to the seniority in the said cadre. It has been emphasized that the appellant has beef brought on the Farms service and was senior in service to respondents Nos. 2 to 5, but he was not considered for promotion to next higher grade in service when his said juniors were so promoted to Class I Senior. Learned counsel for the appellant has appended a letter of irregularities which have been committed by the Department from time to time to show that the appellant has been a subject of discrimination. Learned counsel for the appellant has laid stress mainly on the point that as the appellant was taken into service as Veterinary Assistant Surgeon and was so posted in February, 1961 as temporary Superinten--dent Class II, Dadu Cattle Farm, therefore, he was senior member of the said service and his seniority in no way, would be taken away from him.
6. On the other hand learned counsel for the respondent as well as learned District Attorney have stoutly resisted the claim of the appellant by submitting that no doubt the appellant was initially recruited as Veterinary Assistant Surgeon and was appointed in 1961, as temporary Superintendent Class II, in Dadu Cattle Farm, but the said post was temporary in nature and was abolished later on.
According to learned District Attorney it has been wrongly stated that the appellant has been transferred from the post of Veterinary Assistant Surgeon to that of Superintendent Nutrition in order to take away his seniority, which according to the appellant was, his vested right. It has been vehemently argued that the appellant never belonged to the said cadre of Veterinary Assistant Surgeons and it was only, at his own request, that he was accommodated in the Livestock Production side. According to the learned District Attorney, as his entry in the said cadre, dates from 1978, therefore, he was rightly promoted in 1979 to N.P.S. 18. It has been further pointed out that respondents No.2 to 5 were working in the said cadre long, long time ago and stood promoted in the years 1973 1975 and 1977, earlier than the date, the appellant had joined their cadre at his own request.
7. We gave our anxious thought to the arguments advanced by the parties and have carefully looked into the history of the case and find that in February, 1961, the appellant was appointed a temporary Assistant Superintendent Class II, Dadu Cattle Farm, Sind, the then part of West Pakistan Province, on the clear understanding that the post which he was going to occupy, was purely temporary in nature and he was likely to be reverted back to his original post, after such abolition took place. It is also apparent from the record that as a result of reorganization of the Department and after the abolition of the post which the appellant was occupying, he was posted in the Bureau of Disease Investigation and Biological Products, Lahore in 1962. Similarly, at his own request, he went to Multan in a cadre, separate than the present one in the Livestock Production Institute, Bahadurnagar. In this manner the appellant's claim of seniority is demolished as the appellant has no link in the Livestock Production Research Institute, Bahadurnagar, Okara, till the date, when he was so posted there under option viz. 27-9-1978. The record makes it clear that the appellant has never been permanently borne on the cadre of Livestock Production Research Institute despite the fact that he was selected by the Public Service Commission for the post of Deputy Superintendent, Dadu Cattle Farm, Sind. We have also read the conditions attached to the said post: "that the appointment is till the sanctioned terms of the post and can be terminated on one month's notice on either side, so long as the post is temporary and also during the period of probation in the event of its becoming permanent."
It is clearly borne out from the record that the post was abolished and the appellant was absorbed in the cadre of Bureau of Disease Investigation and Biological Products, as a result of reorganization in 1962. It is also an established fact that he appellant requested for transfer from one cadre to another i.e. Bureau of Disease Investigation and Biological Products, Lahore to Deputy Director, Animal Husbandry, Multan. We have also looked into another aspect of the case that when Messrs Mian Naseer Ahmad Saleem, Muhammad Yaqoob, S. Ehsan Kazmi and S. Khurshid Akbar, were promoted, no exception was taken by the appellant to their promotion, as he had fully realized that the has nothing to do with the Livestock Production Research Institute Bahadurnagar, Okara and he was also conscious that he had no lien in the cadre of Livestock Farms.
8. Looking into all these aspects of the case, we are of the considered opinion that the claim of seniority in the cadre of Livestock Farms by the appellant, where he worked a couple of months only 20 years back cannot be considered a claim worth consideration. We have also satisfied out- selves that the appellant worked in the extension cadre for 16 long years and by the process of service, he was likely to be integrated in the said cadre, but it was he, who managed transfer in the Livestock Production Research Institute Bahadurnagar in 1978. The appellant has been duly promoted at the time when his promotion fell due in 1979.
9. In view of the above analysis of the case, we do not find any justification to interfere with the impugned seniority so claimed by the appellant and proceed to dismiss his appal as being without any merit. There will be no order as to costs.
A.E.