' ABDUL HAMEED KHAN KHATTAK (MEMBER)---By means of this appeal the seniority list, dated 2-5- 1998, and departmental appeals rejection order, dated 20-5-1998 stand assailed by the appellant.
2. Facts as stand reflected in the pleadings of the parties are that in pursuance of the advertisement floated in the newspaper (Annexure-D), the appellant and a large number of other candidates (such total number being 2400) applied for 59 posts of Medical Officers (B-17) and Assistant Aneathetists to be appointed in the Hospitals of CDA, Islamabad. On the recommendations of the Departmental Selection Committee, first batch of 18 Medical Officers/Assistant Anesthetists including the appellant at Serial No, 4 were appointed on 22-6-1992 (Annexure/E) wherein appellant and others were shown as having joined the service on 1-6-1992 and all of them posted to Surgical Block, Capital Hospital, CDA, Islamabad, against the existing vacancies. It transpires that the remaining candidates out of aforementioned total lot of 2400 continued to be selected from time to time by the DSC subsequent to the selection of the appellant and 17 others as detailed above, and the orders of their appointments were issued after selection, appointment and joining of the appellant meaning thereby respondents Nos, 4 to 12 as well as 13 to 20 (pro forma respondents) were selected and appointed much after the selection and appointment of the appellant and as a result final seniority list of Medical Officers was issued on 29-3-1995 (Annexure-G) wherein appellant was placed at Serial No, 18 and Respondents Nos, 4 to 12 were shown junior to him. Another provisional seniority list was issued during the year 1997 wherein appellant was shown senior to respondents except respondents Nos, 5, 8 and-10 but for unknown reasons the aforementioned seniority list was revised on 2-5-1998 wherein appellant was shown junior to respondents Nos, 4 to 12 by placing him at Serial No, 24, feeling aggrieved thereof appellant preferred departmental appeal on 5-5-1998 which was rejected on 20-5-1998, hence this appeal on 18-6-1998 with the prayer that the final seniority list issued on 2-5-1998 in revised form was unwarranted as the earlier final seniority list of 1995 had attained finality and the same as such be set aside and that appellant's seniority be restored as per seniority list dated 29-3-1995 with all back benefits and if any Doctor was promoted in the meantime on the basis of such revised seniority list, the orders of his pro lotion be cancelled and instead the appellant be ordered to be considered for promotion from the same date from which his junior was promoted.
3. Respondents Nos,1 to 3 (concerned department and Establishment Division) and some of the private respondents contested, the appeal by filing parawise comments wherein stand taken by the appellant, as reproduced above, was controverted.
4. Arguments heard, record perused.
5. It requires few words to clinch the matter. It is common stand of both the parties that the appellant as well as private respondents shown in the appeal were selected and appointed on the score of one and the same advertisement (Annexure-D) although appellant and his other 17 batchmates were selected earlier in time to the contesting respondents but as seniority list of 1995 was challenged by some of the affectees like Dr. Reshid Iqbal (Respondent No,5), Dr. Mazhar Hussain, Dr. Taquir Ahmed Iqbal, the matter was taken up by the Establishment Division and as a consequence, the earlier seniority list was ordered to be revised and a final seniority list was issued on 2-5-1998 in the light of provisions of Regulation No,6.03(b) read with Regulation No,6.06 of CDA Employees (Service) Regulations, 1992 and the said Regulations are reproduced as under: "6.03. Seniority on initial appointment.--Subject to Regulation 6.06, the seniority of an employee on initial appointment to a cadre or post shall take effect from the date of regular appointment to the post to which he has been initially appointed: ' Provided that: ' Persons initially appointed through an earlier open advertisement or selection rank senior to those initially appointed through subsequent open advertisement or selection, as the case may be; ' If two or more persons are appointed through the same open advertisement or, if the post was not advertised, through the same selection, their inter se seniority would be determined in the order of merit assigned to them by the selection authority and if no such order was assigned, the older in age shall be senior.
6.06. Date of regular appointment of persons of one batch.--If two or more persons are selected for initial appointment or, as the case may be, for promotion or transfer in one batch, the earliest date on which a person of that batch assumes charge of the post after approval of such appointment by the appointing authority shall be deemed to be the date of regular appointment of all persons of that batch for purposes .Of seniority only."
6. In our considered view, the case of the appellant and contesting private respondents-Doctors is squarely falling within the ambit of aforementioned Regulation of 6.03(b) as admittedly all Of them were selected and appointed in pursuance of one and the same open advertisement (through at intervals). Learned counsel for the appellant, however, attempted to argued by pressing into service the provisions of Regulation 6.06 but to us he seems to be labouring under misconception or to be more apt under wrong interpretation of such rules. The pith and substance of Regulation 6.06 is that if two or more persons are selected for initial appointment, the earliest date on which a person of that batch assumes charge of the post, shall be deemed to be the date of regular appointment of all persons of that batch for purposes of seniority only, meaning thereby all the persons so selected of that batch even latter in time to some of them, shall be entitled to ask for reckoning of their seniority from the same date on which first of all person/persons of that batch assumed the charge of the post and Regulation 6.03 was qualified to this extent only when the words "subject to Regulation 6.06 were introduced at the commencement of Regulation 6.03 and with regard to rest of contents of Regulation 6.03, nothing is to be added by the provisions of Regulation 6.06, hence CDA/Establishment Division have rightly followed the law governing the matter and the impugned seniority list does not suffer from any legal infirmity.
7. Appeal being unmeritorious cannot succeed and the same, thus, is hereby dismissed by leaving the parties to bear their own costs. Parties be informed accordingly through registered posts.