Ram Kishore Vashisht v. Food Corporation of India and Ors.

1. No one appears for the petitioner although the matter is effective item No.2 on the regular board. I have therefore heard the counsel for the respondent No.1 and am proceeding to dispose of the petition.

2. By this writ petition, petitioners seek to challenge the regulations and circulars of the respondent No.1/Food Corporation of India (FCI) with respect to Movement Cadre. Petitioners are praying for cancellation of the appointments of Mr. Avinash Chander Sehgal, Mr. P.P. Balakrishnan, Mr. Ashok Kumar, Mr. Vijay Kumar Kaushal and Mr. Anwar Khan who have been 2013:DHC:2646 appointed to Assistant Grade-I (Min). These persons however have not been made respondents to the writ petition.

3. It is settled law that if the effect of a writ petition is that the appointments of various persons would stand quashed or their seniority affected, then, such persons have to be made parties. Counsel for the respondent No.1 in this behalf relies upon Girjesh Shrivastava and Ors. Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh and Ors. (2010) 10 SCC 707 wherein in paras 20 to 23 it is stated as under:- “20. The next point urged by the appellants, that they had never been impleaded in the two petitions, even as orders passed by the High Court had a direct effect on their livelihood, also goes to the root of the matter as it violates the principle of audi alteram partem.

21. This Court in Prabodh Verma and Ors. v. State of Uttar Pradesh and Ors. held: (SCC p. 273, para 28) "28. …A High Court ought not to decide a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution without the persons who would be vitally affected by its judgment being before it as respondents...".

22. Similarly this Court in Ramarao and Ors. v. All India Backward Class Bank Employees Welfare Association., SCC at pp.86-87 said: (SCC para

27) "27..... An order issued against a person without impleading him as a party and thus, without giving an opportunity of hearing must be held to be bad in law. The appellants herein, keeping in view the fact that by reason of the impugned direction, the orders of promotion effected in their favour had been directed to be withdrawn, indisputably were necessary parties. In their absence, therefore, the writ petition could not have been effectively adjudicated upon."

23. Also in B. Ramanjini v. State of Andhra Pradesh, where selection of certain teachers was challenged without impleading them, this Court held: (SCC pp.542-43, para 19) "19. Selection process had commenced long back as early as in 1998 and it had been completed. The persons selected were appointed pursuant to the selections made and had been performing their duties. However, the selected candidates had not been impleaded as parties to the proceedings either in their individual capacity or in any representative capacity. In that view of the matter, the High Court ought not to have examined any of the questions raised before it in the proceedings initiated before it. The writ petitions filed by the respondents concerned ought to have been dismissed which are more or less in the nature of a public interest litigation."

4. In view of the fact that necessary parties have not been made as respondents and since rights of the aforesaid persons would be affected without they being made parties, the writ petition has to be dismissed for non-joinder of necessary parties.

5. In view of the above, writ petition is dismissed, leaving the parties to bear their own costs. MAY 21, 2013 VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J. Ne