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CASE NO.: Appeal (civil)  3765 of 2001

PETITIONER: U.P. State Electricity Board

RESPONDENT: Pooran Chandra Pandey & others

DATE OF JUDGMENT: 09/10/2007

BENCH: A.K. Mathur & Markandey Katju

JUDGMENT: JUDGMENT O R D E R

1.      Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

2.      This appeal has been filed against the impugned judgment and order  dated 3.1.2000 in SA No. 364/1999 of the Division Bench of the Allahabad  High Court (Lucknow Bench) whereby the Division Bench has affirmed the  judgment of the learned Single Judge dated 21.9.1998 in Writ Petition No.  4027(SS) of 1998.

3.      By means of the writ petition, 34 petitioners who were daily wage  employees of the Cooperative Electric Supply Society (hereinafter referred  to as \021the Society\022) had prayed for regularization of their services in the U.P.  State Electricity Board (hereinafter referred to as \021the Electricity Board\022.  It  appears that the Society had been taken over by the Electricity Board on  3.4.1997.  A copy of the minutes of the proceeding dated 3.4.1997 is  Annexure P-2 to this appeal. That proceeding was presided over by the  Minister of Cooperatives, U.P. Government and there were a large number  of senior officers of the State government present in the proceeding.   In the  said proceeding, it was mentioned that the daily wage employees of the  Society who are being taken over by the Board will start working in the  Electricity Board \023in the same manner and position\024.

4.      Pursuant to the said proceeding, the respondents herein were absorbed  in the service of the Electricity Board.

5.      Earlier, the Electricity Board had taken a decision on 28.11.1996 to  regularize the services of its employees working on daily wage basis from  before 4.5.1990 on the existing vacant posts and that an examination for  selection would be held for that purpose.   

6.      The contention of the writ petitioners (respondents herein) was that  since the Society had been taken over by the Electricity Board, the decision  dated 28.11.1996 taken by the Electricity Board with regard to its daily wage  employees will also be applicable to the employees of the Society who were  working from before 4.5.1990 and whose services stood transferred to the  Electricity Board and who were working with the Electricity Board on daily  wage basis. 7.      The learned Single Judge in his judgment dated 21.9.1998 held that  there was no ground for discriminating between two sets of employees who  are daily wagers, namely, (i) the original employees of the Electricity Board  and (ii) the employees of the Society, who subsequently became the  employees of the Electricity Board when the Society was taken over by the  Electricity Board.  This view of the learned Single Judge was upheld by the  Division Bench of the High Court.

8.      We are in agreement with the view taken by the Division Bench and

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the learned Single Judge.

9.      The writ petitioners who were daily wagers in the service of the  Society were appointed in the Society before 4.5.1990 and their services  were taken over by the Electricity Board \023in the same manner and position\024.   In our opinion, this would mean that their services in the Society cannot be  ignored for considering them for the benefit of the order dated 28.11.1996.

10.     In our opinion, the proceeding dated 3.4.1997 makes it clear that the  employees of the Society should be deemed to be the employees of the  Electricity Board with continuity of their service in the Society, and it is not  that they would be treated as fresh appointees by the Electricity Board when  their services were taken over by the Electricity Board.  In this view of the  matter, the writ petitioners (respondents herein) are entitled to the benefit of  the order of the Electricity Board dated 28.11.1996.  This view also finds  support from the affidavit of Shri Ramapati Dubey, Chief Engineer,  R.P.M.O., U.P. State Electricity Board in which it is mentioned that \023In this  way, the Board Order dated 28.11.1996, a copy of which has been filed as  Annesxure No. 5 to the writ petition, has been complied with and the  employees of the Cooperative Electric Supply Society have been given the  same status and benefit of regularization in the similar manner as it was  given to the employees of the Board\024. 11.     Learned counsel for the appellant has relied upon the decision of this  Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka & Ors  vs. Uma Devi (3) & Ors  (2006) 4 SCC 1 and has urged that no direction for regularization can be  given by the Court.  In our opinion, the decision in Uma Devi\022s case (supra)  is clearly distinguishable.  The said decision cannot be applied to a case  where regularization has been sought for in pursuance of Article 14 of the  Constitution.  12.     As observed by this Court in State of Orissa vs. Sudhansu  Sekhar  Misra (AIR 1968 SC 647 vide para 13):-

\023A decision is only an authority for what it actually decides.  What is of the essence in a decision is its ratio and not every   observation found therein nor what logically  follows from the  various observations made  in it.   On this topic this is what Earl  of  Halsbury, LC said in Quinn v. Leathem, 1901 AC 495:

\023Now before discussing the case of  Allen v. Flood  (1898) AC 1 and what was decided therein, there are two   observations of a general character which I wish to make,  and one is to repeat what I have very often said before,  that every judgment must be read as applicable to the  particular facts proved, or assumed to be proved, since  the generality of the expressions which may be found  there are not intended to be expositions of the whole law,  but governed and qualified by the particular  facts of the  case in which such expressions are to be found. The other   is that a case is only an authority for  what it actually  decides.  I entirely deny that it can be quoted for a  proposition that may seem to follow logically from it.   Such a mode of reasoning assumes that the law is  necessarily a  logical Code,  whereas every lawyer must  acknowledge that the law is not always  logical at  all.\024

13.     In Ambica Quarry Works vs. State of Gujarat  &  others  (1987) 1  SCC 213  (vide para 18) this Court observed:- \023The ratio of any decision must be understood in the  background of the  facts of that case.  It has been said long  time ago that a case is only an authority for what it  actually decides, and not what  logically follows from it.\024         14.     In Bhavnagar University vs. Palitana Sugar Mills Pvt. Ltd (2003)

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2 SCC 111 (vide para 59), this Court observed:-

\023It is well settled that a little difference in facts or  additional facts may make a lot of difference in the  precedential value of a decision.\024

15.     As held in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. & another vs.  N.R.Vairamani & another (AIR 2004 SC 4778), a decision cannot be  relied on without disclosing the factual situation.  In the same Judgment this  Court also observed:-

\023Court should not place reliance on decisions without  discussing as to how the factual situation fits in with the  fact situation of the decision on which reliance is placed.   Observations of Courts are neither to be read as Euclid‘s  theorems nor as provisions of the statute and that too  taken out of the context.  These observations must be  read in the context in which they appear to have been  stated.  Judgments of Courts are not to be construed as  statutes. To interpret words, phrases and provisions of a  statute, it may become necessary for judges to embark  into lengthy discussions but the discussion is meant to  explain and not to define. Judges interpret statutes, they  do not interpret judgments.  They interpret words of  statutes; their words are not to be interpreted as statutes.

In London Graving Dock Co. Ltd.  vs. Horton (1951 AC  737 at p. 761), Lord Mac Dermot observed:

\023The matter cannot, of course, be settled merely by  treating the ipsissima vertra of Willes, J. as though  they were part of an Act of Parliament and  applying the rules of interpretation appropriate  thereto.  This is not to detract from the great  weight to be given to the language actually used by  that most distinguished judge.\024

    In Home Office vs. Dorset Yacht Co. (1970  (2) All ER 294) Lord Reid said, \023Lord Atkin‘s  speech \005.  is not to be treated as if it was a statute  definition; it will require qualification in new  circumstances.\024 Megarry, J. in (1971)1 WLR 1062  observed: \023One must not, of course, construe even  a reserved judgment of Russell L. J. as if it were an  Act of Parliament.\024 And, in Herrington v. British  Railways Board (1972 (2) WLR 537) Lord Morris  said:

\023There is always peril in treating the words  of a speech or judgment as though they are  words in a legislative enactment, and it is to  be remembered that judicial utterances are  made in the setting of the facts of a  particular case.\024

       Circumstantial flexibility, one additional or  different fact may make a world of difference  between conclusions in two cases.  Disposal of  cases by blindly placing reliance on a decision is  not proper.

       The following words of Lord Denning in the  matter of applying precedents have become locus  classicus:

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    \023Each case depends on its own facts and a  close similarity between one case and another is  not enough because even a single significant detail  may alter the entire aspect, in deciding such cases,  one should avoid the temptation to decide cases (as  said by Cardozo, J. ) by matching the colour of one  case against the colour of another. To decide  therefore, on which side of the line a case falls, the  broad resemblance to another case is not at all  decisive.\024                                                    ***         ***         ***   

    \023Precedent should be followed only so far as  it marks the path of justice, but you must cut the  dead wood and trim off the side branches else you  will find yourself lost in thickets and branches.   My plea is to keep the path of justice clear of  obstructions which could impede it.\024               16.     We are constrained to refer to the above decisions and principles  contained therein because we find that often Uma Devi\022s case (supra) is  being applied by Courts mechanically as if it were a Euclid\022s formula  without seeing the facts of a particular case.  As observed by this Court in  Bhavnagar University (supra) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.  (supra), a little difference in facts or even one additional fact may make a lot  of difference in the precedential value of a decision.   Hence, in our opinion,  Uma Devi\022s case (supra) cannot be applied mechanically without seeing the  facts of a particular case, as a little difference in facts can make Uma Devi\022s  case (supra) inapplicable to the facts of that case.       17.     In the present case the writ petitioners (respondents herein) only wish  that they should not be discriminated against vis-‘-vis the original  employees of the Electricity Board since they have been taken over by the  Electricity Board \023in the same manner and position\024.  Thus, the writ  petitioners have to be deemed to have been appointed in the service of the  Electricity Board from the date of their original appointments in the Society.   Since they were all appointed in the society before 4.5.1990 they cannot be  denied the benefit of the decision of the Electricity Board dated 28.11.1996  permitting regularization of the employees of the Electricity Board who  were working from before 4.5.1990.  To take a contrary view would violate  Article 14 of the Constitution.  We have to read Uma Devi\022s case (supra) in  conformity with Article 14 of the Constitution, and we cannot read it in a  manner which will make it in conflict with Article 14.  The Constitution is  the supreme law of the land, and any judgment, not even of the Supreme  Court, can violate the Constitution.     18.     We may further point out that a seven-Judge Bench decision of this  Court in  Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India & Anr. AIR 1978 SC 597  has held that reasonableness and non-arbitrariness is part of Article 14 of the  Constitution.  It follows that the government must act in a reasonable and  non-arbitrary manner otherwise Article 14 of the Constitution would be  violated.  Maneka Gandhi\022s case (supra) is a decision of a seven-Judge  Bench, whereas Uma Devi\022s case (supra) is a decision of a five-Judge Bench  of this Court.  It is well settled that a smaller bench decision cannot override  a larger bench decision of the Court. No doubt, Maneka Gandhi\022s case  (supra) does not specifically deal with the question of regularization of  government employees, but the principle of reasonableness in executive  action and the law which it has laid down, in our opinion, is of general  application.

19.     In the present case many of the writ petitioners have been working  from 1985 i.e. they have put in about 22 years\022 service and it will surely not  be reasonable if their claim for regularization is denied even after such a

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long period of service.  Hence apart from discrimination, Article 14 of the  Constitution will also be violated on the ground of arbitrariness and  unreasonableness if employees who have put in such a long service are  denied the benefit of regularization and are made to face the same selection  which fresh recruits have to face.   20.     For the reasons aforementioned, we find no merit in this appeal.  The  appeal is accordingly dismissed.  No costs.