Gopi Nath, J. - (1.) The petition under Article 226 of the Constitution challenges orders of termination of services passed against the petitioners. One order is annexure III to the writ petition, other orders. It is stated, have been passed in similar terms, but their copies have not been Tiled.
(2.) The petitioners were appointed to the posts of Junior Scientific Assistants Grade 51 in the establishment of respondent No. I in the year, 1972. The appointment was made after a selection by a Board consisting of three members. The recruitment in each case was to a temporary post as will appear from Annexure II to the petition. The material part thereof reads as under:- "2. The appointment will be subject to the following conditions: (a) The post is temporary. (2) You will be on probation for two years. During the probationary period your service can be terminated without notice on either side. After the expiry of the probationary period the appointment may be terminated any time by a month's notice on either side viz., the appointee or the appointing authority without assigning any reasons. The appointing authority however reserves the right of terminating the service of the appointee forthwith or before the expiry of the stipulated period of notice by making payment to him of a sum equivalent to the pay and allowances for the period of notice or the unexpired portion thereof." Clause 4 states : "If you are willing to accept the appointment please report for duty to this Estt. by 14 Oct., 72 failing which the order made to you will be treated as cancelled." The petitioners accepted the appointment on the conditions mentioned in the letter and joined the service. It appears that a representation was made to the Government that the selection held for the post was irregular. This is made clear by para 20 of the petition which states that "the Government has taken a false stand that the earlier selection in which the petitioners were selected was irregular and as such the petitioners after having served for about 11 months had been terminated." The position is further clarified in Para 23 of the petition which states "that from the letter of the Defence Minister (Annexure V) it appears that certain Irregularities were committed at various stages and as such the selection had to be declared void" Annexure V is a letter from the Minister of Defence to the one Sri Chhedilal, which, inter alia, states that Rafter the recruitment of a certain number of Junior Scientific Assistants Gd. II, including 6 Scheduled castes candidates, referred to in your letter, in Cit & C. Kanpur it came to light that a number of serious irregularities bad been committed in the recruitment at various stages consequently, this recruitment had to be declared void and the services of all the 24 candidates, who were appointed as a result of this selection, terminated. The Government however, permitted the persons, whose services had been terminated, to completed in a fresh selection to be held. This was by way of a concession. The services of the petitioners thus, it appears, had to be terminated on account of certain irregularities in the selection.
(3.) Annexure RAI to the supplementary affidavit also throws some light on the irregularities in the selection. The respondent No. 1, in these circumstances, issued orders terminating the services of the petitioners by paying them a sum equivalent to the amount of pay and allowances for one month in lieu of the period of notice. The order of termination. It states that in pursuance of the proviso to sub-rule (1) of rule 5 of the Central Civil Services (Temporary Service) Rules, 1965, the services of Surendra Kumar Srivastava are terminated. It mentions that he is on probation and that one month's pay shall be given to him in lieu of the period of notice Similar orders appear to have been served on other petitioners. The orders have been challenged on three main grounds; (i) that the petitioners had been appointed permanently and they were not temporary. This was urged on the basis of the probation mentioned in the letter of appointment and it was said that there could be no probation in a temporary appointment; (2) that the termination was arbitrary and (3) that the rule under which the termination was made did not apply to the petitioners.;