- (1.) Once again, we are back to the irksome question of inter se seniority between promotees and direct recruits. The contestants, this time, are judicial officers of Delhi. Our familiarity, generally, with the difficulties in the way of judicial officers and our awareness of their just aspirations make our task difficult and sensitive.
(2.) The conclusion to which we have come in this judgment is not different from the one reached by our learned brother Sabyasachi Mukharji. In his judgment, brother Mukharji has discussed, more fully, the various aspects of this matter as also the decisions which were cited before us. Our reasons for writing this separate opinion are, the general importance of this case, the fact that it concerns the higher Judiciary and our respectful disagreement with brother Mukharji on the interpretation of some of the provisions with which we are concerned in these writ petitions.
(3.) There are many decisions bearing upon the familiar controversy between promotees and direct recruits and this will be one more. Perhaps, just another. Since those various decisions have not succeeded in finding a satisfactory solution to the controversy, we would do well by confining our attention to the language and scheme of the rules which are under' scrutiny herein, instead of seeking to derive a principle of universal application to the cases like those before us. Previous Judgments of this Court are, of course, binding to the extent that they are relevant and they cannot be ignored. But, if they turn upon their own facts, the general set-up of the particular service, its historical development and the words of the impugned provisions, no useful purpose will be served by discussing those cases at length, merely to justify an observation at the end that they have no application and are distinguishable.;