Arun Tandon - (1.) -Heard Sri M. M. L. Srivastava on behalf of the petitioners and standing counsel on behalf of respondents.
(2.) THE petitioners who are 4 in number claim to have been appointed as daily wage employees in the office of the Board of High School and Intermediate Education, Uttar Pradesh, Allahabad (hereinafter referred to as the Board), which is a statutory body constituted under the provisions of the Intermediate Education Act, 1921. THE appointment of the petitioners was made in order to cope with the increase of work of the Board due to rapid increase in the number of students appearing in the High School and Intermediate Examinations conducted by the said Board for the entire State of Uttar Pradesh as well as due to the increase in number of institutions recognized for the purposes of admitting students to appear in High School and Intermediate Examinations conducted by the Board. Prior to the appointment of the petitioners there were other similarly situated daily wage employees who had been working in the employment of the Board for years together. The cause of all such daily wage employees was espoused by the Uttar Pradesh Madhyamik Shiksha Parishad Parishramik Sangh, amongst others for the betterment of service conditions and regularization of daily wage employees. For the said purpose a Writ Petition No. 691 of 1988 was filed before this Court by the Parishramik Sangh. In the said writ petition counter-affidavit was filed on behalf of the State of U. P. stating therein that the State Government is considering the proposal forwarded by the Board dated 26.12.1989 for regularizing the services of the daily wage employees. This Court relying on the said affidavit of the State Government provided that the State Government may itself take up the exercise to find a solution to the problem. As a consequence to the aforesaid, the State Government vide Government order dated 14.12.1990 granted permission to the Board, as per the proposal, to absorb the employees having regard to the length of service and qualifications against the existing vacancies and further created 160 posts for absorption of the daily wage employees according to their qualifications. However, the State Government specified that in future no daily wage appointment shall be made by the Board. As against 160 additional sanctioned posts the Board offered regular appointment to only 157 daily wage employees as per the Office order dated 4.1.1991. The remaining three posts were filled by promoting class IV employees. The petitioners were not offered regular appointment despite the posts having been created for the said purpose by the State Government. As a matter of fact the Board came up with the plea that out of the total sanctioned 160 posts, 25 posts are reserved for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and as such there is no post now available for the petitioners who belong to general category. The petitioners were offered appointment as paid apprentice vide letter dated 4.1.1991.
(3.) IN fact, Writ Petition No. 3167 of 1991, Rajesh Kumar and others v. State of U. P. and others was filed claiming reservation to the extent of 45% against the newly created 160 posts. IN the said writ petition an interim order was passed by this Court whereby regularization of daily wage employees was stayed. The said writ petition was ultimately dismissed on 8.3.1994 with a direction that in case some of the posts created by the Government order dated 14.12.1990 remain unfilled even after regularization of daily wage employees, the respondents shall fill the same in accordance with Government order dated 15.3.1965 (providing reservation for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes). The respondents instead of considering the claim of the petitioners for regular appointment subsequent to the judgment and order of this Court dated 8.3.1994 passed in Writ Petition No. 3167 of 1991, made an advertisement inviting fresh applications for appointment against the vacant posts created under the Government order dated 14.12.1990. The petitioners at this stage filed the present petition challenging the advertisement so made as well as for a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to fill up the posts created under Government order dated 14.12.1990 by offering regular appointment to the petitioners only.;