P. Venkatarama Reddi, J. - (1.) These cases involving the issue as to the effective date of regular appointment and seniority unfold certain disturbing features-non- application of mind by the High Court to the crucial aspects of the case, vagueness of the directions issued, the deficiency of pleadings and material placed on record by the contending parties and above all the default of the appellant-Corporation in allowing other similar orders becoming final while contesting certain others including the present matters.
(2.) The undisputed facts common to all these cases may be noticed: Pursuant to the advertisements made by the appellant-Corporation (hereinafter referred to as APSRTC), the respondents were selected as conductors and appointed on daily-wages initially for a certain period of time and thereafter their services were extended on the same terms and ultimately regularized after a year or two. They were placed on time scale of pay and their seniority was counted from the date of such regularization. Long afterwards, the respondents filed writ petitions contending that their services ought to have been regularized from an anterior date i.e., from the date of their initial appointment on daily-wage basis and the service benefits should be granted accordingly. This prayer was practically granted by the High Court with a rider that they should have completed one year of continuous service as defined in Section 25B of the Industrial Disputes Act. There was practically no discussion on the merits in any of these cases either in the judgments under appeal or the earlier judgments which were followed in the instant cases. All the writ appeals were disposed of at the admission stage itself. One more fact to be noticed is that no averment has been made nor any material placed before us to establish that the judgments which were followed in these cases or similar judgments in certain other cases have been contested by APSRTC by filing LPAs or SLPs.
(3.) Now, we will advert briefly to the facts in each of these appeals. Civil Appeal No. 2455 of 1999;