1989 (2) TMI 408

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....o. 125 of 1981. The appellants were originally recruited as Civilian School Masters or L.D.Cs., Leading Hand (Technical), etc. either in the Lower Defence Installations comprising Ordnance Factories, Ordnance Depots, Workshops, Regimental Centres, Units, Command Headquarters, etc. under the control of Army Headquarters, New Delhi. Some of the appellants were declared as surplus in those establishments and they came to be posted/transferred to the Armed Forces Headquarters and inter-service organisations as LDCs. Their posting/transfer was done in the public interest. They joined the service in the Armed Force Headquarters on various dates between 1960 to 1964. Some of them were later promoted as Upper Division Clerks. While they were thus c....

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....nciple has been laid down. The petitioners, in all the three petitioners were originally in common LDC cadre and are in the common cadre of U.D.C. now. It cannot be said that some of them (Writ Petition No. 423 of 1975) will all be governed by the principles of length of service and no others because they have not expressly stated that their seniority should be fixed on the principles of length of service. It may be noted that in 1959 the Home Ministry issued general principles of seniority to be followed in all Government services except where a service follows a different set of principles. The said Memorandum lays down that seniority of all Government employees, employed subsequent to the issuance of the said Memoranda, will be decided o....

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.... the Division Bench and also considered the submissions of the parties. The view taken by the Division Bench appears to be erroneous. The Rules, no doubt provide that all persons substantially appointed to a grade shall rank senior to those holding officiating appointments in the grade. But the Rules have no retrospective effect. It could not impair the existing rights of officials who were appointed long prior to the Rules came into force. The office memorandums to which learned single Judge has referred in detail and which we have extracted above clearly laid down that length of service should be the guiding principle of arranging the inter-se seniority of officials. The appellants being governed by those memorandums had the fight to have....