Ashwani Kumar Singh, J. - (1.) THIS writ petition in the nature of Public Interest Litigation has been filed by a practising advocate at Allahabad, Sri Santosh Kumar Yadav 'Warsi' claiming a writ in the nature of certiorari, quashing the impugned order dated 12.1.09 passed by the Principal Secretary, Public Works Department, Government of U.P., Lucknow, by means of which the extension in service for a period of two years has been granted to the respondent no. 2 on the post of Engineer-in-Chief. The second prayer which has been made is for issuance of a writ in the nature of quo warranto requiring the respondent no. 2 to show the authority of law by which he was continuing on the post of Engineer- in-Chief. The third prayer has been made that the respondent no. 2 be restrained from functioning as such. A preliminary objection has been raised by Sri J.N. Mathur, learned Additional Advocate General and by Sri S.K. Kalia, Senior Advocate, appearing for respondent no. 2 that in view of the fact that the challenge made to the aforesaid order of extension by one aggrieved person, namely, Sri Onkar Singh Kadam in Writ Petition No. 239 (SB) of 2009 has already been rejected by a Division Bench of this Court vide order dated 5.3.09 and, therefore, writ of quo warranto would not be maintainable. Besides, a plea has also been taken that the Public Interest Petition on the behest of the petitioner is not maintainable. Before proceeding further, we would like to state at the outset that the prayer for issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari by the petitioner, who cannot be said to be an aggrieved person himself, alongwith the prayer of issuance of quo warranto is not maintainable. However, considering the plea of the petitioner that since the extension in service to the respondent no. 2 has been granted grossly in violation of the statutory provisions, therefore, the writ of quo warranto would lie, we proceed to consider the arguments of both the sides. Sri Amit Bose, learned counsel for the petitioner, has vehemently urged that in terms of the provisions of second proviso to Fundamental Rule 56(a) of Uttar Pradesh Fundamental Rules contained in Financial Handbook, Vol. II, Part II-IV, extension in service could not have been given to the respondent no. 2 as the conditions mentioned therein, which are conditions precedent, did not exist and the procedure was not followed. The second Proviso to the aforesaid Fundamental Rule 56(a) reads as under: "Provided further that a Government servant holding highly specialized technical job whose replacement has not been possible to be arranged before his retirement even after efforts made in this regard, may be granted extension of service up to the age of sixty-two years, if such extension is unavoidable in public interest and the grounds for such extension are recorded in writing." The third Proviso of the aforesaid Rules gives power to terminate the extension of service before the expiry of such extension by giving a notice in writing of not less than three months in the case of a permanent or, of one month in the case of a temporary Government servant, or pay and allowances in lieu of such notice. The note says that each case for extension of service shall be put up for orders, to the Chief Minister through the Chief Secretary. The challenge to the aforesaid extension order became the subject matter of consideration in the aforesaid writ petition bearing number 239 (SB) of 2009: Onkar Singh Kadam vs. State of U.P. and another, wherein the same very pleas were raised and it was asserted that the extension has been given arbitrarily. In that case, the petitioner also claimed that under the interim orders passed by this Court in the aforesaid writ petition, by means of which the implementation of the order of extension of service of respondent, was stayed by this Court vide order dated 11.2.09, he was considered for promotion and was given promotion and, therefore, the extension be quashed. During the pendency of the writ petition, it appears that the petitioner of that petition was given promotion and this fact was brought to the notice of the Court. The Division Bench, considering the aforesaid fact and also the plea of the respondent no. 2 that the petition has become infructuous, since the respondent no. 2 pressed the writ petition on merits, after quoting the provision under which the extension was granted, though observed that in view of the promotion already made it was not open to the petitioner to challenge the order of extension but at the same time also made the following observations: "The State Government while exercising the power under the second proviso to Rule 56 (a-1) of the U.P. Fundamental Rules has granted the extension of service for a period of two years in public interest to the opposite party no. 2. We are of the view that there is no illegality in the impugned order dated 12.01.2009 as the same has been passed by the State Government within its own domain." The net result of the aforesaid judgement and order is that the challenge made to the extension of the service of respondent no. 2 by an allegedly aggrieved person, met with failure. The petitioner of that petition not being satisfied with the said order, filed Special Leave Petition before the apex court. The apex court dismissed the Special Leave Petition on 6.4.09, after observing that there is no ground to interfere with the impugned order. It is thereafter that the present petition has been filed in public interest praying for a writ of quo warranto. A writ of quo warranto requires the holder of public office to explain his authority, under which he is holding the said office. THIS, in turn, requires the holder of the public office to indicate and establish before the Court, if notices are issued, that he is occupying the office/post under some authority, who was competent to confer or bestow any privilege or appoint him on such post. Two things are essential for issuance of a writ of quo warranto, namely, (i) the person against whom writ is prayed for must be the holder of public office i.e. the office that he holds should be public office and (ii) he should be holding the public office without authority of law. There is no dispute that the office of Engineer-in-Chief is public office and, therefore, a writ of quo warranto can be issued, if the holder of the office is occupying the said office not in accordance with law or so to say unauthorizedly. In this context, it would be very relevant in the instant case to consider that once the challenge to the extension order being unsuccessful in writ jurisdiction of this Court, where a writ of certiorari was prayed for, whether the writ of quo warranto can be issued to the holder of such public office, the reason being that once the appointment/extension in public office has been upheld by the High Court, that too after considering the merits of the claim of the aggrieved party, it cannot be said in a writ of quo warranto that the occupier of the said office is holding the post unauthorizedly or without any authority of law. The distinction between the writ of certiorari and writ of quo warranto, though is thin, but has always to be kept in mind. The writ of quo warranto can only be issued in case the appointment is made in gross violation of some statutory provision and procedure that too in a case where the appointment has not been upheld by the High Court on merits otherwise. If a person is holding the office under the authority vested by the State Government conferred under the Statute and that exercise of authority has been upheld by the High Court or so to say it has not been disturbed on specific challenge being made, it is difficult for us to hold that in such a situation writ of quo warranto would lie against such holder of office. Learned counsel for the appellant has relied upon various judgements of the apex court and to name few High Court of Gujarat v. Gujarat Kishan Mazdoor Panchayat (2003) 4 SCC 712 and Dr. Kashinath G. Jalmi v. The Speaker, (1993) 2 SCC 703, in support of his submission that the judgement passed by the Division Bench in the case of Onkar Singh Kadam is not a judgement in rem and that it was not a judgement on merit of the case and, therefore, a writ of quo warranto would lie. A perusal of the order passed in the aforesaid writ petition of Onkar Singh Kadam, extract of which has been quoted above, leave no room of doubt that though certain observations have been made regarding subsisting right of the petitioner to challenge the extension but finally the writ petition was dismissed with the observation that there was no illegality in the extension, therefore, the aforesaid judgements of the apex court are of no assistance, moreso, when Onkar Singh Kadam challenged the order before the Supreme Court, the SLP filed by him was dismissed. It is also an argument of the counsel for the petitioner that the dismissal of the SLP would not mean that the judgement passed by the Division Bench has been confirmed but for the purpose of issuance of a writ of quo warranto on the same very counts, the said judgement would not bar the issuance of the writ. In the case of University of Mysore v. C.D. Govinda Rao, AIR 1965 SC 491, the Supreme Court in paragraphs 6, 7 and 8 of the report observed as under: 6. The judgment of the High Court does not indicate that the attention of the High Court was drawn to the technical nature of the writ of quo warranto which was claimed by the respondent in the present proceedings, and the conditions which had to be satisfied before a writ could issue in such proceedings. As Halsbury has observed: "An information in the nature of a quo warranto took the place of the obsolate writ of quo warranto which lay against a person who claimed or usurped an office, franchise, or liberty, to enquire by what authority he supported his claim, in order that the right to the office or franchise might be determined." Broadly stated, the quo warranto proceeding affords a judicial enquiry in which any person holding an independent substantive public office, or franchise or liberty; if the inquiry leads to the finding that the holder of the office has no valid title to it, the issue of the writ of quo warranto ousts him from that office. In other words, the procedure of quo warranto confers jurisdiction and authority on the judiciary to control executive action in the matter of making appointments to public offices against the relevant statutory provisions; it also protects a citizen from being deprived of public office to which he may have a right. It would thus be seen that if these proceedings are adopted subject to the conditions recognised in that behalf, they tend to protect the public from usurpers of public office; in some cases persons, not entitled to public office may be allowed to occupy them and to continue to hold them as a result of the connivance of the executive or with its active help, and in such cases, if the jurisdiction of the courts to issue writ of quo warranto is properly invoked, the usurper can be ousted and the person entitled to the post allowed to occupy it. It is thus clear that before a citizen can claim a writ of quo warranto, he must satisfy the court, inter alia, that the office in question is a public office and is held by usurper without legal authority, and that necessarily leads to the enquiry as to whether the appointment of the said alleged usurper has been made in accordance with law or not. 7. In the present case, it does not appear that the attention of the Court was drawn to this aspect of the matter. The judgment does not show that any statutory provisions or rules were placed before the Court and that in making the appointment of Appellant 2. these statutory provisions had been contravened. The matter appears to have been argued before the High Court on the assumption that if the appointment of Appellant 2 was shown to be inconsistent with the qualifications as they were advertised by Appellant 1, that itself would justify the issue of a writ of quo warranto. In the present proceedings, we do not propose to consider and decide whether this assumption was well-founded or not. We propose to deal with the appeals on the basis that it may have been open to the High Court to quash the appointment of Appellant 2 even if it was shown that one or the other of the qualifications prescribed by the advertisement published by Appellant 1 was not satisfied by him. 8. Realising the difficulty which he may have to face, Mr. S.K. Venkataranga Iyengar for the respondent wanted to raise the contention that the appointment of Appellant 2 was made in contravention of the statutory rules and ordinances framed by Appellant 1. He attempted to argue that he had referred to the statutory rules and ordinances in the High Court, but, unfortunately, the same had not been mentioned or discussed in the judgment. We have carefully considered the affidavits filed by both the parties in the present proceedings and we have no hesitation in holding that that at no stage it appears to have been urged by the respondent before the High Court that the infirmity in the appointment of Appellant 2 proceeded from the fact that the statutory rules and ordinances made by Appellant 1 had been contravened. The affidavit filed by the respondent in support of his petition merely described the appointment of Appellant 2 as being illegal, and significantly added that the said appointment of Appellant 2 and the failure of the University to appoint the respondent, were illegal in the face of the prescribed qualifications, and these qualifications in the context undoubtedly referred to the qualifications published in the notification by which the relevant post had been advertised. The respondent no. 2, under the circumstances, cannot be said to be a usurper of the office, the extension being granted by the State Government, who was competent to do so, it not being the case, that there was no power at all, with the State Government to grant extension, even in the given circumstances. The aforesaid judgement passed in the case of Onkar Singh Karam (supra) may not operate as res judicata, but unless it is established, that the State Government was having no authority or was bereft of the power to grant extension, writ of quo warranto cannot be issued. Another argument which has been very emphatically raised is that there is a violation of the statutory procedure and conditions prescribed in the second proviso in the aforesaid Rule 56 (a), in as much as no effort was made to select an alternative person for being appointed/promoted on the post of Engineer- in-Chief and there is nothing to indicate that the State Government has found that it was not possible to release the existing incumbent and that it was unavoidable in public interest. At this juncture, Sri J.N. Mathur, learned Additional Advocate General, offered to produce the record and submitted that there is sufficient material on record, which says that the government first considered the question as to whether it was possible to make any appointment on the post of Engineer-in-Chief and that whether it is unavoidable to give extension in public interest because he was looking after unfinished projects and, of course, he was a person, who was holding highly specialized technical job. The record which has been produced, has been seen by the learned Counsel for the petitioner also, gives the reason that promotion cannot be made because of pending litigation. We do not intend to enter into the niceties and the reasons given therein as we are of the view that in the facts and circumstances of the present case, the petition cannot be entertained. The writ petition is dismissed.;