- (1.) The question that arises for consideration in this writ petition is the manner in which the Government servants described as 'local candidates' (the meaning of which we shall explain later) should be placed in the Inter-State Seniority List prepared under S.115 of the State Reorganisation Act.
(2.) The facts of this case, as to which there is no dispute, are briefly the following:
(3.) The petitioner was appointed temporarily as a First Division Clerk in the erstwhile State of Mysore on 1st October 1966. He continued to hold that position when the reorganisation of States under the above Act was brought about on 1st November 1956. The petitioner was then working in the Mysore Government Insurance Department. In the Provisional inter-State Seniority List of non-Gazetted Government servants working in the said Department published on 9th June 1964, as well as in the final list published on 5th December 1964, the petitioner and other similarly situated were included in the category of First Division Clerks. Thereafter, a fresh final list was published on 7th December 1965 in substitution of the previous one. In that list, the petitioner and others similarly situated were shown in a separate category called 'local candidates'. Thereupon certain persons of that category aggrieved by that separate classification filed W.Ps.2619, 2821, 2648, 2649 and 2653 of' 1965 before this Court challenging the said final list. By a common rrder made in those Writ petitions on 11th January 1968, this Court quashed the list in so far as it related to the petitioners therein and directed the Union Government to re-determine their positions in the said list, after giving an opportunity to persons affected to make representations, within two months from the date of receipt of such representations. The present petitioner was one of the persons who took the opportunity to make fresh representations. After considering the various representations, the Central Government published a fresh final list on 10th October, 1968. In the said list, the four petitioners in the earlier W.Ps.2619 of 1965, etc., were shown in one group under the heading 'local candidates', and other persons including the present petitioner in another group, also under the heading 'local candidates'.;