HC raps Gurugram Municipal Corporation for 'unbecoming conduct'

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has pulled up Gurugram Municipal Corporation for taking contradictory stands in service matters and causing “grave mental agony, harassment, and loss of reputation” to its employees.

“This court is constrained to observe that the respondents’ conduct is unbecoming of a public employer. In the present case, the Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, Gurugram, has taken inconsistent stands at different stages, thereby blowing hot and cold in his approach towards the petitioners”, Justice Harpreet Singh Brar asserted.

The Bench added that promotion orders were issued despite the non-availability of vacancies in

the Gurugram Municipal Corporation, Subsequently, these were sought to be withdrawn on the ground of having been issued inadvertently. “The conduct of the employer is strongly deprecated,” Justice Brar added

The matter was placed before Justice Brar’s Bench after the petitioners approached the High Court seeking quashing of orders dated October 27, 2023, December 29, 2023, and January 6, 2024, by which they were reverted from the posts of Assistant Fire Station Officer/Sub Fire Officer to Leading Fireman.

The Bench was told that the petitioners were initially appointed as Firemen by Gurugram Deputy Commissioner under the Haryana Municipal Services (Integration, Recruitment and Conditions of Services) Rules, 1982. They were later promoted as Leading Firemen in 2011 under the Haryana Municipal Service Rules, 1998.

Following a 2018 High Court judgment, the civic body was directed to consider their promotion under the 1982 Rules since 97 sanctioned posts were vacant prior to the enforcement of the Haryana Fire (Group C) Service Rules, 2016.

Gurugram Municipal Corporation, however, claimed there were no vacancies under the old rules, stating that all sanctioned posts had already been filled. Despite this stand, promotion orders were issued on June 26, 2020, and later withdrawn in October 2023, purportedly to correct an “inadvertent mistake.”

Justice Brar held that posts of Assistant Fire Station Officer/Sub Fire Officer were not lying vacant prior to the enforcement of the 2016 Rules. Applying the “old vacancy, old rules” principle, the court added any vacancy arising after June 3, 2016, had to be governed by the 2016 Rules.

“Under the 2016 Rules, the Director of Fire Services is the sole competent authority to grant promotions,” the judge held, concluding that “the promotion orders issued by the Commissioner, Municipal Corporation, Gurugram, were void ab initio, having been passed without jurisdiction, and were rightly withdrawn.”

Justice Brar clarified that the respondents had complied with the 2018 decision by granting promotions to similarly situated employees in other municipal corporations where vacancies existed under the old rules. “The Respondents, therefore, cannot be held to have acted in a discriminatory manner by not granting promotion to the petitioners in the present case, as in the Municipal Corporation, Gurugram, no vacancy was available under the old Rules and all sanctioned posts already stood filled,” the judge said.