M. Jagannadha Rao, J. - (1.) Leave granted in all the special leave petitions.
(2.) These Civil Appeals arise out of several writ petitions filed in the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir in which common judgment was delivered on 14-12-1998. The judgment of the High Court deals with power of Government to appoint officers on promotion temporarily for periods of more than six months without consulting the Public Service Commission, grant of seniority to such promotees in respect of service within their quota and also outside quota. Validity of the order passed by the State Government on 2-1-1998 regularising, at one stroke, several ad hoc promotions made between 25-5-1973 to 31-12-1996 was in issue, so far as the Electrical wing was concerned. We are concerned only with the regularisation of ad hoc Assistant Engineers and Assistant Executive Engineers (see Point 2 in the High Court judgment). The High Court held that ad hoc/stop gap service of promotees could not be regularised. A contention was also raised before us by the direct recruits that stop gap or ad hoc service of promotees could never be regularised and only service rendered in a post where a person if appointed "according to rules"can be regularised and that there was rota coupled with quota. All the appeals before us have been filed by the promoted Assistant Engineers. How the appeals have arisen:
(3.) SWP 522/80 was filed in the High Court by the direct recruit Assistant engineers of the Mechanical Department to fix a seniority and to declare that they were entitled to the post of Assistant Executive Engineers w.e.f. the date of their appointment as Assistant Engineers and to treat direct recruits as senior to respondents 3 to 121 therein (promotees) and to quash the promotion of respondents 3 to 32 therein as Assistant Executive Engineers (Mechanical). Similarly SWP 227/97 and 47/98 were filed by direct recruit Assistant Engineers (Electrical) seeking the quashing of Government Order dated 12-12-1997 containing the seniority list and also to quash the Government Order dated 2-1-1998 whereby services of several ad hoc promotee Assistant Engineers of the Electrical wing were regularised. They sought a further direction for issuing a fresh seniority list and for promotion as per quota and a direction not to fill up the post of Assistant Executive Engineers from among promotees' quota till seniority as per quota was fixed. CWP 1869/97 and 824-B/94 were filed by the direct recruits civil engineers (Hydraulic) for fixing seniority as per the recommendations of the Committee constituted by the Government by its order dated 31-2-1997 and for a direction not to promote promotee Assistant Engineers as Assistant Executive Engineers till a final seniority list was prepared.;