The Judgment of the Court was delivered by
Kasliwal, J.:— This special appeal is directed against the order of the learned Single Judge, dated 25 January, 1984, dismissing the Writ Petition No. 2037 of 1982.
2. The petitioners, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Secretariat Officers' Association (hereinafter referred to as the Officers' Association) and Sri B. Goswami, Deputy Secertary, Estimates Committee and Administration, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, Jaipur, filed a writ petition claiming the following reliefs:
“It is, therefore, humbly prayed—
(i) that the appointment of respondent 5 on the post of Secretary Rajasthan Legislative Assembly, by order, dated 6 February, 1981, may be quashed and he may further be restrained forthwith from functioning as Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly;
(ii) that respondent 5 has no legal authority to hold the post of Assembly Secretary and he is merely usurper of the office and by a writ of quo warranto he may be removed from the office;
(iii) that by a suitable writ, order or direction, the respondents may be restrained from posting and appointing any employee other than an officer belonging to the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly Secretariat cadre as Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly;
(iv) that rule 4(i) as well as rule 4(8) and sub-rule 4(ii) of the Rules of 1952 may be declared ultra vires Arts. 14, 16 and 187 of the Constitution;
(v) that rule 3 of the Rules of 1962 empowering the State Government to create such number of posts for the Assembly Secretariat as they think necessary may be declared ultra vires Art. 87 of the Constitution and quashed, as it clothes the State Government with arbitrary authority and may hamper the functioning of the Legislature;
(vi) that item (2) of Sch. II of the Rules of 1959 may be quashed;
(vii) that for the purpose of elucidation and clarification it may be declared that the term’ transfer’ used in Rule 4(1) of the Rules of 1952 does not cover deputation of a member of any other service of the State particularly on the post of Secretary, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly;
(viii) that respondent 1 may be directed to frame as soon as practicable detailed and self-contained rules laying down the procedure of recruitment and conditions of service of the employees of the Assembly Secretariat, keeping in view the provisions of Art. 187(1) of the Constitution of India;
(ix) that any other suitable order may be passed in favour of the petitioners; and
(x) that costs may be awarded to the petitioners.”
The learned Chief Justice dismissed the writ petition by passing the following order:
“Heard learned counsel for parties at length.
I find no merits in this writ petition and the same is hereby rejected. There will be no order as to costs.”
3. The case of the petitioner-appellants was that petitioner 2. B. Goswami, was the senior most Deputy Secretary in the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly. Initially he joined Government service in the year 1945 in the former State of Bikaner. With the formation of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly he was appointed as a Reporter in the year 1952 and as a result of competitive examination held by the Assembly Secretariat in which he stood first, he was promoted as Section Officer (then called Superintendent) in 1960. Thereafter, he was promoted as Assistant Secretary in 1961 and as Deputy Secretary on 29 November, 1971. He was confirmed as Deputy Secretary with effect from 24 March, 1977. There were three posts of Deputy Secretaries in the Assembly Secretariat and B. Goswami was the senior most Deputy Secretary holding this post for the last 11 years and was eligible to be appointed as Secretary, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly.
4. It was alleged in the writ petition that respondent 5, a member of Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service, had been placed on deputation by the Rajasthan High Court for appointment as Secretary, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly vide order, dated 3 February, 1981. The State Government issued an order, dated 5 February, 1981, by which the services of the respondent 5 were placed at the disposal of the Speaker. Thereafter the Speaker, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly appointed respondent 5 as Secretary, Rajasthan Legislative Assembly vide order, dated 6 February, 1981. It may be further mentioned that during the pendency of the writ petition. Sri Pritam Aadhar Sinha was appointed as Secretary, Legislative Assembly, in place of respondent 5, by order, dated 2 February, 1983. Sri Pritam Aadhar Sinha was also a member of Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service and was appointed on the post of Secretary in a similar manner as respondent 5. The petitioner-appellants thus filed the writ petition claiming the above mentioned reliefs.
5. Aggrieved against the aforesaid order the present special appeal has been filed. Sri Mehta, learned counsel for the appellants, submitted that the appointment of members of other services to the Secretariat staff of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly is illegal and against the basic structure of the Constitution of India. It was argued that under Art. 187 of the Constitution of India it has been provided that the House of the Legislature of a State shall have a separate secretarial staff. The Legislature of a State has been authorised by law to regulate the recruitment and conditions of service of persons appointed to the secretarial staff of the House or Houses of the Legislature of the State. It is further submitted that under Cl. (3) of Art. 187 of the Constitution it has been provided that:
“Until provision is made by the Legislature of the State under Cl. (2), the Governor may, after consultation with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly or the Chairman of the Legislative Council, as the case may be, make rules regulating the recruitment, and the condition of service of persons appointed, to the secretarial staff of the Assembly or the Council, and any rules so made shall have effect subject to the provisions of any law made under the said clause.”
It is submitted that under the aforesaid provision of Cl. (3) of Art. 187, rules were made by the Governor as early as in 1952, but thereafter no rules have been made by the Legislature of the State. It is contended that the provision under Cl. (3) of Art. 187, which empowered the Governor to make rules, was only a kind of stop-gap arrangement and in reality such rules should be made by the Legislature itself. The rules as such made by the Governor in 1952 have lost its force after a lapse of 32 years and should be declared invalid as the same are against the spirit of provisions laid down in Cl. (2) of Art. 187 which only empowers the Legislature of the State to make such rules.
6. We find no force in this contention. It is no doubt true that under Cl. (2) of Art. 187, the Legislature of a State has been empowered to make rules regulating the recruitment and the conditions of service of persons appointed to the secretarial staff of the House but under Cl. (3) of Art. 187 it has been clearly provided that until provision is made by the Legislature under Cl. (2), the Governor may after consultation with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly or the Chairman of the Legislative Council, as the may be, make rules in this regard it is for the Legislature to exercise its powers under Cl. (2) of Art. 187 and any time lag or any in action on the part of the Legislature to act under Cl. (2) of Art. 187, cannot, in any manner, make the rules, made by the Governor after consultation with the Speaker, as invalid. This Court has no jurisdiction to give a mandamus to the Legislature to invoke its powers under Cl. (2) of Art. 187 of the Constitution. Clause (3) of Art. 187 clearly provides that until any provision is made by the Legislature of the State under Cl. (2) the rules made by the Governor shall have effect and as such the rules made by the Governor in 1952 cannot be held to be illegal or ultra vires merely on the ground that the Legislature has not made any rules under Cl. (2) of Art. 187.
7. It was further contended by Sri Mehta that the basic idea in framing Art. 187 of the Constitution was that the Legislature of State should function independently of the Executive and the Judiciary, in the matter of appointing secretarial staff of the Legislature. Sri Mehta, learned counsel for the appellants, quoted the following speach of Dr. B.R Ambedkar in support of the above contention:
“It was, as every one most probably in this House knows, a matter of contention between the Executive Government and the President ever since the late Sri Vithal-bhai Patel was called upon to occupy the President's Chair in the Assembly. A dispute was going on between the Executive Government and the President of the Assembly. The President had contended that the Secretariat of the Assembly should be independent of the Executive Government. The Executive Government of the day, on the other hand, contended that the executive had the right to nominate, irrespective of the wishes and the control of the President, the personnel and the staff required to serve the purposes of the Legislative Assembly. Ultimately, the Executive Government in 1928, gave in and accepted the contention of the then President and created an independent Secretariat for the Assembly. So far, therefore, as the Central Assembly is concerned, there is really no change effected by this new Art. 79A, because what is provided in Cl. (1) of Art. 79A is already a fact in existence.
But it was pointed out that this procedure’ which has been adopted in the Central Legislature as far back as 1928 or 1929, has not been followed by the various Provincial Legislatures. In some provisions the practice still continues of some officer, who is subject to the disciplinary jurisdiction of the Legislative Department, being appointed to act as the Secretary of the Legislative Assembly, with the result that that officer is under a sort of dual control, control exercised by the department of which he is an officer and the control by the President under whom for the time being he is serving. It is contended that this is derogatory to the dignity of the Speaker and the independence of the Legislative Assembly.
The Conference of the Speakers passed various resolutions insisting that besides making this provision in the Constitution, several other provisions should also be made in the Constitution, so as to regulate the strength, appointment, conditions of service, and so on and so forth. The Drafting Committee was not prepared to accept the other contentions raised by the Speakers' conference. They thought that it should be quite enough if the Constitution contained a simple clause stating that Parliament should have separate secretarial staff and rest of the matter is left to be regulated by Parliament. Clause (3) provides that until any provision is made by Parliament, the President, in consultation with the Speaker of the House of the People or the Chairman of the Council of State, make rules for the recruitment and the conditions of service. When Parliament enacts a law, that law will overrule the rules made pretempore by the President in consultation with the Speaker of the House of the People. I think that the provision that we have made is sufficient to meet the main difficulty, which was pointed out by the Speakers' Conference, I hope this House will find no difficulty in accepting this new article.”
8. It was also submitted by Sri Mehta that ever since the commencement of the Constitution of India, the question of having an independent Secretariat organisation for the Legislature had been engaging the attention of the Speaker and the Secretaries of Legislature and a concensus had been arrived at in the following manner:
“(i) the staff of such bodies should be completely free from the control of the executive;
(ii) that the post of the Secretary to the Legislature should be filled in by promotion from amongst the existing staff and if a suitable person holding the requisite qualifications and experience, is not available by promotion, then only recourse should be had to appointment by transfer or permanent deputation; and
(iii) that the staffing pattern of the Parliament Secretariat should be adopted in all the Legislature Secretariats. In the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sobha the post of Secretary has been filled in always by promotion and in any case not by deputation from persons belonging to other services. Similar is the position in certain other State Legislatures, e.g, Hatyana, etc., also for the past several years.”
9. S. Mehta placed reliance on the following observations made in N.V.S Jiyalakshmi v. Secretary, Andhra Pladesh Legislature, Hyderabad, [(1980) 3 S.L.R 493], by a Division Bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court:
“It is clear from these proceedings that the main object of enacting Art. 98 in regard to Parliament and Art. 187 in regard to State Legislature is to preserve the independence of the Legislature and see that the staff of the Legislature Secretariat is under the control of the Speaker and should not be assimilated to the position of the staff of other departments of the executive. It is in the light of these proceedings that the expression the House or each House of the Legislature of a State shall have a separate Secretariat staff’ should be understood. The object of having such a separate staff is not merely to have a staff physically separate from the staff of the other departments of the executive. In truth and in fact, it must be a separate staff in the sense that it should not be under the control of the executive. In the impugned rules on the other hand, we find that the Legislature Secretariat is regarded as a department of the Government. The Secretary of the Legislature is called Secretary to Government. Similarly, Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries are also called Deputy Secretaries to Government and Assistant Secretaries to Government. Rule 3 makes the Andhra Pradesh State and Subordinate Services Rules, the Andhra Pradesh Civil Service (Conduct) Rules, 1964 and the Andhra Pradesh Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, applicable to the members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature Service. In other words, the appointing authority in the case of Secretary, Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries is the Government. The disciplinary control is that of the Government. The Speaker of the Assembly or the Chairman of the Legislative Council has no place or part either in the appointment or in the exercise of disciplinary control over the members of the staff. It is, therefore, clear that far from being independent of the executive, the members of the staff including the Secretary are all part of the executive and the Legislature. Secretariat is treated for all purposes as a department of the Government except for the fact that there is a separate set of rules for the appointment of members of the staff to this service. The fact that the members of the staff of the Legislature Secretariat are governed by a separate set of rules does not make them any the less the members of a department of Government as is clear from the rules themselves. We, therefore, agree with the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the rules infringe Art. 187(1) of the Constitution.”
10. We find no force in the above contention of Sri Mehta. There can be no manner of dispute that the object of Art. 187 of the Constitution is to preserve the independence of the Legislature and to see that the staff of the Legislature Secretariat remains under the control of the Speaker and should not be assimilated to the position of the staff of other departments of the executive. This right is not in any manner infringed by framing Rules of 1952. It is an admitted fact that the rules have been made in accordance with the provisions of Cl. (3) of Art. 187 by the Governor, after consultation with the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. Provision has been made in the Rules of 1952 that appointment of Secretary of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly shall be made by the Speaker, it is also evident from annexure 4, dated 6 February, 1981, filed along with the writ petition that the appointment of respondent 5 as Secretary was made by the Speaker himself in consultation with the Governor. Thus, there is no interference of the executive or the judiciary in making the appointment of Secretary of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly by the Speaker. Even Dr. Ambedkar in his speech quoted above had pointed out that the provision that had been made in the Constitution was sufficient to meet the main defect which was pointed out by the Speakers' conference. This only shows the background under which Art. 187 and especially Cl. (3) of Art. 187 was introduced and the framers of the Constitution were satisfied that Art. 187 as enacted would fulfill the desire of maintaining independence of the Legislature. As already mentioned above the Rules of 1952 were neither derogatory nor in violation of the provisions contained in Art. 187. In the case of N.V.S Jayalakshmi, [(1980) 3 S.L.R 493] (vide supra), the rules which were subject-matter of challenge before the Andhra Pradesh High Court had provided that the Secretary of the Legislature was called “Secretary to Government”. Similarly, the Deputy Secretary and Assistant Secretary were also called “Deputy Secretary to Government and Assistant Secretary to Government”. Rule 3 made the Andhra Pradesh State and Subordinate Services Rules, the Andhra Pradesh Civil Service (Conduct) Rules, 1964 and the Andhra Pradesh Civil Service (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules applicable to the members of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature Service. The appointing authority in the case of Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Assistant Secretaries was the Government. The disciplinary control was that of the Government. The Speaker of the Assembly or the Chairman of the Legislative Council had no place or part either in the appointment or in the exercise of disciplinary control over the members of the staff. On the above facts it was held by the Andhra Pradesh High Court that it was clear that far from being independent of the executive the members of the staff including the Secretary were all part of the executive and the Legislature Secretariat was treated for all purposes as a department of the Government except for the fact that there was a separate set of rules for the appointment of members of the staff to that service. In the above circumstances, the rules relating to the Andhra Pradesh Legislature Secretariat were quashed being violative of Art. 187 of the Constitution. The Rules of 1952 before us made by the Governor after consultation with the Speaker of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly lay down provision altogether different. The Speaker is the sole depository of making appointment of Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly and there is no encroachment on his independence in making such appointment.
11. It was next contended by Sri Mehta that even if for arguments' sake the Rules of 1952, be taken as valid there is violation of rule 4 of the Rules of 1952 in making the appointment of a member of Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service on deputation as Secretary of the Rajasthan Legislative Assembly. Rule 4(1) of the Rules of 1952 reads as under:
“4. Appointments how and by whom made.— Subject to the provisions contained in sub-rule (2), all appointments in the Assembly Secretariat may be made—
(i) by direct recruitment; or
(ii) by promotion; or
(iii) by transfer—
(i) from other services or departments of the State; and
(ii) from the services of other States in India on deputation; or
(iv) by re-employment of a retired officer of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service.”
12. On the basis of the above provisions of rule 4 it is contended that appointment on deputation can only be made from the services of other States in India but so far as member of any services in the State of Rajasthan is concerned, the same cannot be made on deputation and can be brought in by transfer alone.
13. We see no force in the above contention. It is no doubt correct that the word “deputation” has been used in respect of services of other States in India, but the power of transfer in respect of members of other services or departments of the State has also been given and the power of transfer can be exercised by sending a member of service, who is being transferred in the Assembly Secretariat. Rule 33 of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service Rules, 1969, provides that any member of the service may be deputed by the Governor in consultation with the Court to perform the duties of any post in the Central Government or the State Government or to serve a body incorporated or not which is wholly or substantially owned or controlled by the Government. Thus, if a member of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service is to be sent on transfer in the Assembly Secretariat, it would be done on deputation and for the purpose of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service Rules it would be a deputation and for the purpose of the Rules of 1952, it would be a transfer. Thus, we are clearly of the view that there is no violation of rule 4 of the Rules of 1952 in appointing a member of the Rajasthan Higher Judicial Service as Secretary of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly on deputation.
14. It was also contended by Sri Mehta that 32 years have elapsed after framing the Rules of 1952, no chance has been given to the Deputy Secretaries of Rajasthan Legislative Assembly for being promoted to the post of Secretary and this is a denial of future chances of promotion to the members of the Assembly Secretariat. It is further submitted that the grievance has been considered as genuine even by the Speaker and papers have been moved by the Speaker but no action is being taken at the Government level.
15. The grievance may be genuine but this Court is only concerned with the legality of the demand made by the petitioner-appellants. It is well settled that there is no fundamental right guaranteed for future chances of promotion to a Government servant. This Court in exercise of its extraordinary jurisdiction under Art. 226 of the Constitution cannot issue a mandimus or direction to the Speaker or to the Governor to amend the rules in order to redress the above grievance of the petitioners. It lies within the competence of the Legislature or the Speaker and the Governor to step in and to make suitable provision in accordance with Art. 187 of the Constitution to redress the grievance of the petitioner-appellants.
16. In the result, we find no force in this appeal and it is accordingly dismissed with no order as to costs.