The appellant challenged dismissal of his writ petition for ACP benefits on grounds of delay and laches. Relying on Arvind Kumar Srivastava, the Court held that employees who acquiesce to wrongful action and approach court only after counterparts succeed are 'fence-sitters' and cannot claim benefits. Appeal dismissed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH SHIMLA
LPA No. 448 of 2024.
Date of Decision : 30th December, 2024.
| Rajeev Kumar Versus |
.…Appellant. |
|---|---|
| State of H.P. & another | ....Respondents. |
Coram:
The Hon’ble Mr. Justice G. S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice. The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Satyen Vaidya, Judge.
Whether approved for reporting?
For the Appellant: Mr. Suneel Awasthi, Advocate. For the Respondents: Mr. Pranay Pratap Singh, Addl. A.G.
G. S. Sandhawalia, Chief Justice (Oral)
Consideration in the present appeal is to the order of learned Single Judge, whereby, the Civil Writ Petition No. 13533 of 2024 was dismissed on 26.11.2024.
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U.P. Versus Arvind Kumar Srivastava and others, (2015)1 SCC
347 ,which in turn was also relied upon by the learned Additional Advocate General for the respondents.
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down in Arvind Kumar Srivastava (supra) , reads as under:-
22. The legal principles which emerge from the reading of the aforesaid judgments, cited both by the appellants as well as the respondents, can be summed up as under:
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22.1 Normal rule is that when a particular set of employees is given relief by the Court, all other identically situated persons need to be treated alike by extending that benefit. Not doing so would amount to discrimination and would be violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. This principle needs to be applied in service matters more emphatically as the service jurisprudence evolved by this Court from time to time postulates that all similarly situated persons should be treated similarly. Therefore, the normal rule would be that merely because other similarly situated persons did not approach the Court earlier, they are not to be treated differently.
22.2 However, this principle is subject to well recognized exceptions in the form of laches and delays as well as acquiescence. Those persons who did not challenge the wrongful action in their cases and acquiesced into the same and woke up after long delay only because of the reason that their counterparts who had approached the Court earlier in time succeeded in their efforts, then such employees cannot claim that the benefit of the judgment rendered in the case of similarly situated persons be extended to them. They would be treated as fence-sitters and laches and delays, and/or the acquiescence, would be a valid ground to dismiss their claim.
22.3 However, this exception may not apply in those cases where the judgment pronounced by the Court was judgment in rem with intention to give benefit to all similarly situated persons, whether they approached the Court or not. With such a pronouncement the obligation is cast upon the authorities to itself extend the benefit thereof to all similarly situated person. Such a situation can occur when the subject matter of the decision touches upon the policy matters, like scheme of regularisation and the like (see K.C. Sharma & Ors. v. Union of India (1997)6SCC 721). On the other hand, if the judgment of the Court was in personam holding that benefit of the said judgment shall accrue to
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the parties before the Court and such an intention is stated expressly in the judgment or it can be impliedly found out from the tenor and language of the judgment, those who want to get the benefit of the said judgment extended to them shall have to satisfy that their petition does not suffer from either laches and delays or acquiescence.
23. Viewed from this angle, in the present case, we find that the selection process took place in the year 1986. Appointment orders were issued in the year 1987, but were also cancelled vide orders dated June 22, 1987. The respondents before us did not challenge these cancellation orders till the year 1996, i.e. for a period of 9 years. It means that they had accepted the cancellation of their appointments. They woke up in the year 1996 only after finding that some other persons whose appointment orders were also cancelled got the relief. By that time, nine years had passed. The earlier judgment had granted the relief to the parties before the Court. It would also be pertinent to highlight that these respondents have not joined the service nor working like the employees who succeeded in earlier case before the Tribunal. As of today, 27 years have passed after the issuance of cancellation orders. Therefore, not only there was unexplained delay and laches in filing the claim petition after period of 9 years, it would be totally unjust to direct the appointment to give them the appointment as of today, i.e. after a period of 27 years when most of these respondents would be almost 50 years of age or above.
24. For all the foregoing reasons, we allow the appeal and set aside the order of the High Court as well as that of the Tribunal. There shall, however, be no order as to costs.”
aside the order of the High Court as well as of the Tribunal wherein the challenge had been made to the cancellation of the appointments on the
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ground that some other persons, whose appointment letters were also cancelled and had got relief but by that time nine years had passed. In such circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that the view taken by the learned Single Judge does not suffer from any infirmity or illegality which would warrant us to interfere.
( G. S. Sandhawalia) Chief Justice.
(Satyen Vaidya) Judge
30th December, 2024. (jai)
2 issues framed by the court
Whether delay and laches in claiming ACP benefits warrants dismissal of the writ petition despite similar relief granted to others?
Whether the 'fence-sitter' principle applies to deny benefits to employees who approached court only after others succeeded?
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Pankajakshi Sharma vs. State of H.P. & Ors.Referred¶14
CWPOA No. 5952 of 2020, titled as Pankjakshi Sharma vs. State of H.P. & Ors.
Shiv Dass vs. Union of India and OthersReferred¶14
Shiv Dass VS. Union of India and Others, (2007)9 SCC 274 · Who else cites this
Union of India and others vs. Tarsem SinghReferred¶14
Union of India and others vs. Tarsem Singh, (2008)8 SCC 648 · Who else cites this
State of U.P. vs. Arvind Kumar Srivastava and othersApplied¶21
State of U.P. Versus Arvind Kumar Srivastava and others, (2015)1 SCC 347 · Who else cites this
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Rajeev Kumar
State of H.P.
another
G. S. Sandhawalia
Satyen Vaidya
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
