Shri Sushil Debbarma & Others vs The State Of Tripura And Others
2021 Latest Caselaw 54 Tri

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                    HIGH COURT OF TRIPURA
                      _A_G_A_R_T_A_L_A_
                        WP(C) No.810 of 2020
Shri Sushil Debbarma & others

                                                       ......Petitioner(s)

                                  VERSUS

The State of Tripura and others

                                                        ......Respondent(s)

For Petitioner(s)        :        Mr. C.S. Sinha, Advocate.
For Respondent(s)        :        Mr. D. Bhattacharya, G.A.

      HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. AKIL KURESHI

                              ORDER

08/01/2021

Petitioners seek retrospective promotion to Tripura Forest

Service Grade-I from the date they became eligible for such promotion. All

the petitioners were appointed in Tripura Forest Service Grade-II posts on

different dates. Petitioners No.1, 2 & 3 joined the department in the said

cadre in the year 1992. Petitioner No.4 joined in the year 1985. According

to them, upon completion of 10 years of service in TFS Grade-II they were

eligible for promotion to TFS Grade-I. They were actually promoted under

an order dated 27th May, 2006 with prospective effect. They claim that they

should have been given the retrospective date of promotion upon

completion of 10 years of service and at any rate from the date of

occurrence of the vacancies on which they were promoted.

Going by the petitioners own dates and events, they want

retrospective promotion w.e.f. 2002 in case of petitioners No.1, 2 & 3 and

1995 in case of petitioner No.4. They have filed this petition in the year

2020. They are late by decades in approaching the Court. Even If we

consider the petitioners scale down expectations of grant of due date of

promotion from the date where the vacancies arose, by their own account

such event took place in the year 2004. Stretching this issue further, at any

rate the petitioners were granted actual promotion on 27 th May, 2006. This

promotional order made it clear that the effect of promotion is prospective.

If the petitioners were aggrieved by this order to the extent it did not give

them backdated seniority or due date of promotion, they should have

moved the Court within a reasonable time. The petition is filed more than

14 years after the cause of action had arisen.

The petitioners are not either contingency paid staff who would

be on tenterhooks and therefore always slow in taking on the administration

in a Court of law, nor are lowly paid or semi-literate Group-D servants.

They were direct recruits in TFS Grade-II service and were later on

promoted to TFS Grade-I service. They had tenure protection as well as

sufficient means and wherewithal to ventilate their grievances timely.

Though Limitation Act may not be applicable to writ petitions, it is

well settled through serious of judgments that the aggrieved person must

approach the Court within reasonable period. In the present case, the

petitioners have approached the Court after 14 years of cause of action

having arisen.

No case for interference is made out. The petition is dismissed.

Pending application(s), if any, also stands disposed of.

(AKIL KURESHI), CJ

Dipesh.