- (1.) This is a group of Writ Petitions and an Appeal involving the questions, mainly, (i) whether the petitioners and the appellants recruited directly as Assistant Executive Engineers, Executive Engineers, Superintending Engineers and, may be, as Chief Engineers were appointed to regular cadres in the Ministry of Shipping and Transport (Roads Wing), Government of India, or whether they were appointed to excadre posts; and (ii) whether they can be put into a separate class for the purpose of regulating their seniority and promotional opportunities in relation to others who were appointed to similar posts on the basis of the result of the Combined Engineering Services Examination. The petitioners and the appellants (whom we will refer to as the 'petitioners') were appointed after a viva voce test only, or to use the language of the current controversy, they were appointed after being successfully interviewed by the Union Public Service Commission. The latter mode of expression helps to highlight that no "examination" as such was involved in their selection and appointment as in the case of those others who now figure in the array of respondents.
(2.) Some of the respondents herein, who were then working as Assistant Executive Engineers in the Ministry of Shipping and Transport (Roads Wing), filed a Writ Petition (C. W. 536 of 1970) in the Delhi High Court against 51 officers, including the present petitioners, who were working either as Assistant Executive Engineers or as Executive Engineers in the same Wing. Their contention was that the appointment of these 51 officers being contrary to the recruitment rules was illegal or alternatively, that they were appointed to ex-cadre posts and not to the 'Central Engineering Service'. It was therefore claimed that none of those officers was eligible for promotion to the post of Executive Engineer until the respondents were first appointed to those posts and that the respondents were entitled to be confirmed with immediate effect in preference to those officers immediately on the availability of permanent vacancies.
(3.) A similar Writ Petition (C. W. 537 of 1970) was filed in the Delhi High Court by three Executive Engineers, who are amongst the present respondents, contending that whereas their appointment after passing a competitive examination held by the U. P. S. C. was in accordance with the recruitment rules, the present petitioners were appointed to ex-cadre posts after a mere interview, that such a method of recruitment was not permissible under the rules, that the petitioners herein were appointed for the limited purpose of assisting in the execution of certain projects and that those who were appointed in accordance with the rules were entitled to be treated as senior to those who were not. It was for those reasons contended that Executive Engineers who were appointed by the interview method can neither be confirmed nor promoted unless and until they were brought into the cadre and appointed to the regular cadre posts.;