- (1.) ALL these Writ Petitions in­volve common questions of law and facts and, therefore, as agreed by learned counsels for the parties, have been heard together and are being decided by this common judgment at this stage under the Rules of the Court.
(2.) THE Writ Petition No. 37610 of 2008 (hereinafter referred to as the "first Writ Pe­tition") argued as leading case has been filed by 45 petitioners seeking a writ of manda­mus commanding the respondents to regularize them on the post of Assistant from the date of their initial appointment with all service benefits; and a further mandamus not to make any appointment on the post held by the petitioners in various branches of the Corporation pursuant to advertisement (An-nexure-3 to the Writ Petition). The facts in brief, giving rise to the present dispute, as averred in the first Writ Petition, are, that due to shortage of Assis­tants on account of non recruitment for years together, the Branch Managers of various branches of Life Insurance Corporation of India (hereinafter referred to as the "LIC") requested the Divisional and Zonal Manag­ers to permit them to make appointments on the post of Assistants. After receiving ap­proval there from, requisitions were sent to various employment exchanges. The petition­ers names were forwarded by the concerned employment exchanges. Thereafter they were interviewed and being successful therein were issued appointment letters. Copies of some of the appointment letters have been filed col­lectively as Annexures-7 and 8 to the Writ Petition. The petitioners joined their services as Assistants (except petitioner No. 16 who joined as Typist) on various dates in the years 1998-99. It would be appropriate to place the said details as under: (See table on next page)
(3.) THE work and performance of the peti­tioners claim to be satisfactory. Some of the petitioners were also transferred from one section to another for discharging duties of Assistant and Cashier. However, the petition­ers were not given benefits like annual incre­ment, medical benefit, leave encasement, productivity linked Bonus, lump sum incen­tive, conveyance allowance, provident fund, LTC etc. for which they raised demand through letters dated 02.11.2007, 04.11.2007 and 04.06.2008 (Annexures-12, 13 and 14 to the Writ Petition). It is said that there are permanent vacancies of Assistants and no regular recruitment has been made for the last almost 10 years, therefore, the petitioners are entitled for regularization and all the benefits available to regularly appointed employees. However, instead of considering petitioners for regularization, the respondents have pro­ceeded ahead to issue an advertisement noti­fying substantive vacancies of Assistants in- @ Table ------------------- ST. No. Petitioner No. Name Date of Joining Post Branch where posted 1. Suresh Kumar Chaturvedi 09.11.1998 Assistant Renukut 2. Parmanand Singh 03.12.1998 Assistant Renukut 3. Abhay Kumar 30.03.1999 Assistant Ballia 4. Rakesh Kumar Srivastava 14.06.1999 Assistant CBO-2 Varanasi 5. Shiv Pratap Singh 10.04.1999 Assistant Vindhyachal 6. Brijesh Kumar Srivastava 01.01.1999 Assistant Robertsganj 7. Virendra Kumar 26.11.1998 Assistant Renukut 8. Surendra Kumar Singh 03.12.1999 Assistant Renukut 9. Brij Bihari Prasad 13.11.1998 Assistant Renukut 10. Sanjay Kumar 19.11.1998 Assistant CBO-4 Varanasi 11. Ashok Kumar Gupta 18.11.1998 Assistant Ballia 12. Santosh Kumar Singh 03.03.1999 Assistant Vindhyachal 13. Prem Kumar Bharti 20.11.1998 Assistant Mirzapur 14. Sanjay Kumar 19.03.1999 Assistant Robertsganj 15. Ajay Kumar 09.11.1998 Assistant Ballia 16. Tribhuvan 28.10.1998 Typist Jaunpur-2 17. Sanjay Kumar Gupta 28.10.1998 Assistant Jaunpur-2 18. Surya Bali Ram 28.10.1998 Assistant CAB Varanasi 19. Santosh Kumar Sinha 18.11.1998 Assistant CBO Varanasi 20. Chandrika Ram 20.11.1998 Assistant CBO-1 Varanasi 21. Abdul Hanif 18.03.1999 Assistant CBO-1 Varanasi 22. Shy am Mohan 05.05.1999 Assistant CBO-1 Varanasi 23. Sanjay Kumar Srivastava 06.11.1998 Assistant D.B.O. Varanasi 24. Devi Prasad Yadav 06.11.1998 Assistant D.B.O. Varanasi 25. Neel Ratan Singh Details not available N.A. N.A. 26. Prem Chandra Gautam 02.11.1999 Assistant Rasara 27. Vinay Kumar Lal 18.12.1998 Assistant Jaunpur 1 28. Bhanu Pratap Singh 02.11.1998 Assistant Rasara 29. Shrish Chand Shukla 23.11.1998 Assistant Mirzapur 30. Lai Bahadur Kashyap 05.11.1998 Assistant Sarnath Varanasi 31. Sanjay Tiwari 09.11.1998 Assistant Ghazipur 32. Sri Ram 05.11.1998 Assistant CBO2 Varanasi 33. Rakesh Kumar Singh 17.12.1998 Assistant CBO2 Varanasi 34. Rama Shanker 14.06.1999 Assistant CBO2 Varanasi 35. Sandeep Kumar Tiwari 23.11.1998 Assistant Manduadih Varanasi 36. Manoj Kumar Yadav 23.11.1998 Assistant Manduadih Varanasi 37. Vishnu Kumar Singh 02.12.1998 Assistant Sarnath Varanasi 38. Alok Sharma 23.11.1998 Assistant Kerakat Jaunpur 39. Manoj Kumar Shastri 24.05.1999 Assistant Ballia 40. Anil Kumar Dubey 14.12.1998 Assistant Mungra Badshahpur Jaunpur 41. Vinita Gupta 14.12.1998 Assistant Mungra Badshahpur Jaunpur 42. Mahendra Pratap 14.12.1998 Assistant Mungra Badshahpur Jaunpur 43. Jitendra Kumar Yadav 04.01.1999 Assistant Shahganj Jaunpur 44. Shiv Shanker Singh 03.04.1999 Assistant DBO Varanasi 45. Shy am Dev Yadav 23.11.1998 Assistant Manduadih Varanasi eluding those where against the petitioners are working and the petitioners have been advised to compete therein. The action of the respon­dents in advertising the vacancies instead of considering them for regularization has been challenged on the ground that it is wholly arbitrary, volatile of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, amounts to unfair labour practice and also in violation of law laid down by a Division Bench of this Court in Life In­surance Corporation of India and another v. Kailash Nath and others, 2008(1) ADJ 95: (2008 (2) ALJ (NOC) 548).;