- (1.) D. P. Singh, J. Heard learned Counsel for the petitioners and Sri Ashok Mehta for the respondent No. 3, the Official Liquidator and the learned Standing Counsel for the other respondents.
(2.) IN spite of the time being granted learned Standing Counsel has not filed any counter-affidavit. IN connected matters, the Official Liquidator has filed his counter-affidavit. This petition is directed against an order dated 23-3-2006 by which the claim of the petitioners for absorption in Government departments under the U. P. Absorption of Retrenched Employees of Government or Public Corporation in Government Services Rules, 1991 (hereinafter referred to as the Absorption Rule, 1991) has been rejected. The petitioners claiming to be retrenched employees of the U. P. Cement Corporation sought absorption under the Absorption Rules, 1991 but as no action was taken they preferred Writ Petition No. 34438 of 1999, Subhash Chandra and 12 others v. State of U. P. and 4 Ors. and a learned Single Judge of this Court disposed off the petition vide order dated 21-2-2006 directing the respondents to consider their claim by a reasoned order. In pursuance thereof, by the impugned order the claim has been rejected on the ground that their case is not covered by the earlier judgment of this Court rendered in the case of Bageshwari Prasad Srivastava & Ors. v. State of U. P. & Ors. , Writ Petition No. 17195 of 1998, decided on 29-4-1999 and also that no retrenchment certificate has been issued by the State and further that they cannot be appointed in view of the fact that 1991 Rules has been rescinded and replaced by 2003 Rules. These very grounds were raised in the connected petition No. 22728 of 2006, Vikrmaditya Pandey & Ors. v. State of U. P. & Ors. and the objections have been overruled.
(3.) HOWEVER, the learned Counsel for the State and the Official Liquidator have urged that even according to the own showing of the petitioners they are not covered under the Absorption Rules of 1991. The Absorption Rules of 1991 defines "retrenched employee" as follows : "retrenched employee" means a person who was appointed on a post under the Government or a public corporation on or before October 1, 1986 in accordance with the procedure laid down for recruitment to the post and was continuously working in any post under the Government or such Corporation up to the date of his retrenchment due to reduction in, or winding up of, any establishment of the Government or the public Corporation, as the case may be and in respect of whom a certificate of being a retrenched employee has been issued by his appointing authority. ";