S.R.SINGH,J. - (1.) THIS cluster of five writ petitions proceeds from selection to the Uttar Pradesh Higher Judicial Service (In short the 'service') pertaining to the recruitment years 1992 -1994 held pursuant to an advertisement issued in June, 1996 thereby inviting applications for recruitment against 19 vacancies in the Service in the pay scale of Rs. 4500 -5700 attended with admissible allowances. According to the advertisement, 10 vacancies were earmarked for general candidates, four for Scheduled Castes and five for OBC (Other Backward Classes). The advertisement encapsulated a clause that there might be 'variance' in the number of vacancies without prior notice.
(2.) THE petitioners appeared in the written examination as also in the interview, which followed the written examination. The names of the petitioners glow in the select -list prepared under sub -rule (4) of Rule 18 of the U. P. Higher Judicial Service Rules. 1975 (hereinafter referred to in the abbreviated form as the 'Rules'). The select -list enlisted 40 candidates in all i.e. twice the number of vacancies required to be filled by direct recruitment as exacted by the directions of the Supreme Court in O. P. Garg and Ors v. State of U. P. and Ors., AIR 1991 SC 3202. The Court, however, transmitted to the Governor truncated lists of each category of candidates sized up to the number of vacancies. We have heard S/Sri Ashok Khare, Ashok Bhushan, Anjani Kumar and Shiva Nath Singh for the petitioners and Sarva Shri Sunil Ambwani Counsel appearing for the High Court, S. M. A. Kazmi for certain member of the Nyaylik Sewa and Standing Counsel representing the State of Uttar Pradesh.
(3.) THE first, rather the foremost, question surcharged with considerable litigious potentiality is whether the number of officers to be called at the recruitment from the bar, was correctly fixed compatible with the requirements of Rule 8(1) read with Rule 6 of the Rules? Recruitment to the Service, it may be observed, is now made from two sources; (1) by direct recruitment of pleaders and Advocates of not less than Seven years' standing on the first date of January next following the year in which notice inviting application is published; and (II) by promotion of confirmed members of the U. P. Nyayik Sewa (In short the "Nyayik Sewa'), who have put in not less than Seven years of service to be computed on the first date of January next following the year in which the notice inviting application is published. The quota for direct recruitment from the bar is pegged at 15% and the one for members of the U. P. Nyayik Sewa is 85% as the total cadre strength as provided in Rule 6 of the Rules. Anteceding this, the quota prescribed under Rule 6 of the Rules for the members of the Nyayik Sewa was 70% of the vacancies and 15% was ear -marked for U. P. Judicial Officers Service (Judicial Magistrates) which has since become an extinct cadre, and now the percentage fixed for them, stands subsumed in the Nyayik Sewa. It has been held in Srikant Tripathi v. State of U. P.,(1987) 1 UPLBEC 222 (FB), that the quota prescribed under Rule 6 for direct recruitment is conditional upon and circumscribed by constraints provided under Rule 8 of the Rules.;