Service Of Employees In Zilla Parishad Should Be Counted For Seniority When ZP Has Been Absorbed By Municipal Corporation : Supreme Court

While hearing a plea against the primary teachers who were appointed in the Zila Parishad and were later on absorbed into Pune Municipal Corporation based on their inter-se seniority, the Supreme Court observed that their service, while in the Zilla Parishad, deserves to be counted for their seniority.

A Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice J.K. Maheshwari observed that this was clearly envisaged under Section 439 read with Clause (5) of Appendix IV of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act, 1949.

"There is no dispute regarding the fact that Clause 5(c), including its first proviso, occupies this field of law till date. The provision explicitly deals with protection of conditions of service of the officers and servants who were earlier employed in a local authority like a ZP, and who have been subsequently absorbed into a Municipal Corporation. It expressly protects their service rendered by them in the local authority before the appointed day and further provides that it shall be considered as service rendered in the Municipal Corporation itself. Given the existence of this unambiguous provision, the only logical conclusion is that the service rendered by Respondent Nos. 5 to 79 in the ZP has to be treated as service rendered in the PMC. Such service, therefore, has to be counted towards the determination of their seniority as well."

The State of Maharashtra decided to expand the territorial limits of the PMC and 38 villages of Pune ZP were merged into PMC. The Respondents too, along with others, were given an option for their merger in the PMC. They opted to accede to the absorption and joined the PMC. To regulate the conditions of service of employees who are merged from the Zilla Parishad to Municipalities, the State Government had passed a Resolution dated August 13, 1990. A dispute broke out between the teachers who were initially recruited in the Zilla Parishad and were later absorbed into the PMC and the primary teachers who had been part of the services of the PMC from the beginning on the fixation of inter se seniority.

PMC circulated a draft seniority list which proposed to assign seniority to Respondents from the dates of their absorption to the PMC.

A 5-member committee was constituted for considering the objections raised by the Respondents. According to the committee, the service rendered by Respondent in their roles within the ZP stood excluded from the length of their total service. Naturally aggrieved, the Respondents approached the Bombay High Court, which ruled in their favour. Resultantly, the Appellant Association, one formed by the primary teachers who were directly recruited by the PMC, moved the Supreme Court.

In order to determine the inter se seniority, the question before the Court was to check whether Section 3(3)(b) of the MMC Act or Section 493 read with Clause (5) of Appendix IV of the MMC Act would be applicable.

The purpose of Section 3(3)(b) of the MMC Act, the Court noted, was to ensure that any statutory or administrative decision which had already been enforced by a Municipal Corporation in its existing larger urban area should stay in force and would become applicable automatically in the newly added area also and the expression ‘appointments’ must be understood in this context only.

The Court further noted that Clause 5 (c) of Appendix (IV) read with Section 439 of MMC Act provided with protection of conditions of service of the officers and servants who were earlier employed in a local authority like a ZP, and who have been subsequently absorbed into a Municipal Corporation. The Court also drew light to the fact that Clause (5) of Appendix IV starts with the expression ‘continuation’ of appointments which refers to ‘continuation’ connotes ‘without interruption’.

“It is an unbroken and consistent state of affairs or operation of something. In other words, the service rendered by Respondent Nos. 5 to 79 in the ZP is consistent and unbroken and it remains in existence even after their absorption into the PMC as a result of the statutory protection embodied under Clause (5) of Appendix (IV) read with Section 493 of the MMC Act.”

The Court also pointed out that the PMC Committee was not competent to make any administrative recommendation dehors the 1990 Government Resolution, while dismissing the appeal.

Case Title: Maharashtra Rajya Padvidhar Prathamik Shikshak Va Kendra Pramukh Sabha v. Pune Municipal Corporation and Ors | Civil Appeal No. 1765 Of 2023

Citation : 2023 LiveLaw (SC) 229

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