W.Brome, J. - (1.)This writ petition filed by Parkash Chandra Dubey Claims Tracer in the employ of the Northern Railway, challenges the seniority lists issued from the office of the General Manager of the Railway on 27-8-1963 and 2-3-1964, fixing the seniority of the petitioner on the basis of his original date of recruitment to the railway service.
(2.)The petitioner was employed in the year 1943 as an office clerk in the office of the Chief Commercial Superintendent of the East Indian Railway, but the Sec. in which he was employed was allotted in the year 1952 to the zone covered by the Northern Railway. The Claims Tracers employed in the Claims Sec. of the railway were recruited from different sources, viz. from Commercial Clerks working on the line and from the clerical staff of the Chief Superintendent's Office. At first they were appointed on the basis of special selection, but later on were recruited merely on the basis of seniority-cum-suitability. The seniority of these various recruits used to be calculated with reference to the date of their appointment in the cadre of Claims Tracers; but the impugned seniority list issued in 1963 and 1964 have introduced a distinction, with the result that earlier recruits will be entitled to claim seniority on the basis of their date of appointment in the Cl time Tracers' cadre, while later recruits will have their seniority allotted on the basis of the date of their original appointment as clerks in the railway. The petitioner was appointed as Claims Tracer in 1957, consequently his seniority has been shown in the impugned lists with reference to the date his Original appointment as clerk i.e. 1943.
(3.)Mr. Khare, who appears for the petitioner, has made the following two submissions :
(1) That the natural criterion for fixing seniority is the date of appointment to the particular cadre in question; and the authorities had no justification for departing from this principle in the case of the petitioner, in the absence of any statutory rule authorising such departure.

(2) The introduction of different criteria for calculating seniority in the case of persons recruited earlier and in the case of those recruited later involves unfair and discrimination and infringes Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.