TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2014 (2) TMI 1300
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....und that the same violates the fundamental rights guaranteed to the writ petitioners under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. We shall presently formulate the questions that arise for determination more specifically but before we do so, we consider it necessary to set out the factual matrix in which the entire controversy arises. 2. In a note submitted to the State Cabinet on 15th May 1990 the problem of over 2000 unemployed degree-holders in various branches of Engineering who had passed out from several Engineering colleges since the year 1984 was highlighted and a proposal for utilizing the manpower so available for the benefit of the State economy mooted. The proposal envisaged a twofold action plan for absorbing the unemployed graduate Engineers. The first part of the action plan provided for withdrawal of 127 posts of Assistant Engineers that had been referred to the Public Service Commission and advertised by it to be filled up by appointing unemployed degree holder Engineers in a nonclass II rank. The second part of the proposal envisaged creation of 614 posts of Junior Engineers in different Departments to accommodate the unemployed degree holders. These 614 posts ....
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....ives, which will get preference in award of work by the Department/Corporations." 5. As a sequel to the above decision, the Government invited applications from unemployed graduate Engineers of all disciplines for empanelment as Stipendiary Engineers for placement in different Government departments, projects, public sector undertakings, co-operative societies and industries etc. By another resolution dated 22nd September 1990, the Government stipulated the procedure to be adopted for discipline-wise empanelment of the unemployed graduate Engineers for appointment as Stipendiary Engineers against the vacancies in different departments and undertakings. The procedure evolved was to the following effect : "2. Government have since decided that the following procedure should be adopted for discipline wise empanelment of the unemployed Graduate Engineers for appointment as Stipendiary Engineers against the vacancies in different government Department and undertakings: (1) 25 percent of the posts shall be filled up on merit basis and for this purpose equal number will be taken from each batch starting from the batch of 1984 up to the batch of 1989. (2) A po....
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....or the reason that the panels of such candidates are exhausted, the Department of P & C will give a non-availability certificate to the indenting organizations so that they can take steps to de-reserve the vacancies and give appointment to general candidates in their place. (10) The normal requirement for new appointment under Government viz. production of original certificates, Medical Certificate, Schedule Caste/Scheduled Tribe Certificate etc. shall be applicable to these appointments and the verification of these documents shall be the responsibility of the Employing Departments/Undertakings. (11) In some cases relaxation of age limit for entry into Government service may have to be done and this will be attended to by the Employing Departments/Undertakings as a matter of course. ORDER Ordered that the Resolution be published in the Orissa Gazette for general information. Ordered also that copies of the Resolution be forwarded to all Departments of Government, Member, Board of Revenue, All Heads of Departments, All District Collectors, Secretary to Governor, Registrar, Orissa High Court Secretary, OPSC, Principal Secretary to the Chi....
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....iary Engineers or Junior Engineers with Degree or equivalent qualification quotas for these categories will be added to direct recruitment quota." 8. It is evident from the above that while the Government did not propose to reduce the 33% quota reserved for promotees, out of the remaining 67% meant for direct recruitment, it proposed to carve out what was described as selection quota of 30% for absorption of the Stipendiary Engineers to the extent of 25% of the vacancies and degree holder Junior Engineers against the remaining 5% of the vacancies. The balance of 37% of the vacancies was, however, left to be filled up by direct recruitment from the open market. 9. Based on the above, the Government appears to have made a reference to the Orissa Public Service Commission on 5th June 1996 for approval of the draft Orissa Engineering Service (Recruitment & Condition of Service) Rules, 1994 which were already approved by the State Council of Ministers on 3rd December 1994. The Orissa Public Service Commission, however, struck a discordant note. In its opinion, since the Stipendiary Engineers did not constitute a cadre in the formal sense it was not desirable to treat it as a feede....
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....ad hoc basis for a period of one year, except Civil & Mechanical, to be appointed on ad hoc basis by the Department of Water Resources. XXX XXX XXX Stipendiary Engineers who are already working in different State Government Undertakings, Corporations,, Semi-Government Organizations & Statutory Boards may also be appointed as Assistant Engineers or in equivalent posts carrying the same scale, subject to their suitability and satisfactory performance." 11. The resolution notwithstanding, the Government does not appear to have appointed any Stipendiary Engineers as Assistant Engineers on ad hoc basis. Aggrieved, the Stipendiary Engineers filed O.J.C. Case No.8373 of 1995 Jayanta Kumar Dey and Ors. v. State of Orissa and Ors. for a writ of mandamus directing the Government to comply with the resolution and the order issued by it. This petition was allowed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Orissa at Cuttack by an order dated 18th December 1996. The High Court directed the Government to take expeditious steps to implement resolution dated 12th March 1996, preferably within a period of four months. It further directed the State Government to appoint Stipendia....
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.... as Assistant Engineers. Memorandum dated 28th November, 2002 referred to appointment of 846 Stipendiary Engineers in Civil, 61 Stipendiary Engineers in Mechanical and 25 Engineers in Electrical wings making a total of 932 Stipendiary Engineers in different Departments. We are informed at the Bar that the present number of such Stipendiary Engineers is limited to 881 only as the rest have either resigned, retired or died. The proposal made in the Memorandum also took note of the information given by the Orissa Public Service Commission and the repeated demands of ad hoc Assistant Engineers engaged from Stipendiary Engineers for regularization. The proposal stated that no regular appointments were made by the Orissa Public Service Commission and that the validation of appointments of Stipendiary Engineers as Assistant Engineers will immensely benefit the State in execution of several ongoing development works. The proposal further stated that having rendered more than 10 years of service, these Stipendiary Engineers currently working as Assistant Engineers on ad hoc basis will have no avenues for employment as they had already gone beyond the upper age limit prescribed for direct re....
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...., those appointed against 5% quota reserved for Junior Engineers holding a degree qualification were left out. 16. Writ Petition No.11093 of 2006 was similarly filed by Junior Engineers who had not been appointed as Assistant Engineers claiming parity with Degree holder Junior Engineers already appointed as Assistant Engineers on ad hoc basis against 5% quota disapproved by the Public Service Commission for such Engineers. 17. Writ Petition No.16742 of 2006 was filed by Junior Engineers promoted as Assistant Engineers against 33% quota reserved for such Engineers whose grievance primarily was that regularisation/validation of the appointments of Stipendiary Engineers in the cadre of Assistant Engineers was illegal and unconstitutional and adversely affected them in terms of their seniority. 18. The above writ petitions were heard by a Division Bench of the High Court of Orissa who allowed the same by its order dated 15th October, 2008 striking down the impugned Legislation primarily on the ground that the same brought about discrimination between Assistant Engineers similarly situate and, therefore, fell foul of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. The High Court observ....
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....No.1 22. Black's Law Dictionary (9th Edition, Page No.1545) defines a Validation Act as "a law that is amended either to remove errors or to add provisions to conform to constitutional requirements". To the same effect is the view expressed by this Court in Hari Singh & Others v. The Military Estate Officer and Anr. (1972) 2 SCC 239, where this Court said "The meaning of a Validating Act is to remove the causes for ineffectiveness or invalidating of actions or proceedings, which are validated by a legislative measure". In ITW Signode India Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise (2004) 3 SCC 48, this Court described Validation Act to be an Act that "removes actual or possible voidness, disability or other defect by confirming the validity of anything which is or may be invalid". 23. The pre-requisite of a piece of legislation that purports to validate any act, rule, action or proceedings were considered by this Court in Shri Prithvi Cotton Mills Ltd. and Ann v. Broach Borough Municipality and Ors. (1969) 2 SCC 283. Two essentials were identified by this Court for any such legislation to be valid. These are: (a) The legislature enacting the Validation Act should be compet....
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....lly examine the law and determine whether (i) the vice of invalidity that rendered the act, rule, proceedings or action invalid has been cured by the validating legislation (ii) whether the legislature was competent to validate the act, action, proceedings or rule declared invalid in the previous judgments and (iii) whether such validation is consistent with the rights guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution. It is only when the answer to all these three questions is in the affirmative that the Validation Act can be held to be effective and the consequences flowing from the adverse pronouncement of the Court held to have been neutralised. Decisions of this Court in Shri Prithvi Cotton Mills Ltd. and Anr. V. Broach Borough Municipality and Ors. (1969) 2 SCC 283, Hari Singh v. Military Estate Officer (1972) 2 SCC 239, Madan Mohan Pathak v. Union of India (1978) 2 SCC 50, Indian Aluminium Co. etc. v. State of Kerala and Ors. (1996) 7 SCC 637, Meerut Development Authority etc. v. Satbir Singh and Ors. etc. (1996) 11 SCC 462, and ITW Signode India Ltd. v. Collector of Central Excise (2004) 3 SCC 48 fall in that category. Even in the realm of service law, validation enactments have su....
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...." (emphasis supplied) 28. We may also refer to Maxwell on Interpretation of Statutes (12th Edn., page 6), where on the basis of authorities on the subject, short title of the Act has been held to be irrelevant for the purpose of interpretation of statutes. Lord Moulton in Vacher and Sons Ltd. v. London Society of Compositors [1913] AC 107 described the short title of an Act as follows: "A title given to the act is solely for the purpose of facility of reference. If I may use the phrase, it is a statutory nickname to obviate the necessity of always referring to the Act under its full and descriptive title....Its object is identification and not description." (emphasis supplied) 29. Dr. Dhawan, learned senior counsel appearing for the appellants fairly conceded that the impugned legislation could not be described as a simple Validation Act. According to him, the Act achieved a dual purpose of (a) validating the invalid ad hoc appointments and (b) appointing the Stipendiary Engineers working as ad hoc Assistant Engineers on a substantive basis by regularising their appointments. While we have no difficulty in agreeing with the latter part of the conten....
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....or not the legislation is a validating law. 31. There was in the above context some debate at the Bar whether or not the impugned enactment is a validating enactment as it purports to be. As seen above, Dr. Rajiv Dhawan and even Shri Narasimha, did not see the impugned enactment as a validating legislation, no matter it carries a label to that effect. Mr. Patwalia & Mr. Sisodia, senior advocates, appearing for the opposite parties were also not supportive of the legislation being a validating enactment and in our opinion rightly so. That is because the essence of a validating enactment is a pre-existing act, proceeding or rule, being found to be void or illegal with or without a judicial pronouncement of the Court. It is only when an act committed or a rule in existence or a proceeding taken is found to be invalid that a validating act may validate the same by removing the defect or illegality which is the basis of such invalidity. There is no question of validating something that has not been done or that has yet to come in existence. No one can say that an illegality which has not yet been committed can or ought to be validated by legislation. Existence of an illegal act, proc....
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....gularisation ordered in the case at hand is by way of a legislation. It is trite that what could be achieved by the Government by exercise of its executive power could certainly be achieved by legislation, as indeed it has been achieved in the case at hand. Question No.1 is answered accordingly. Re. Question No.2 34. A Constitution Bench of this Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka and Ors. v. Umadevi (3) and Ors. (2006) 4 SCC 1 ruled that regularisation of illegal or irregularly appointed persons could never be an alternative mode of recruitment to public service. Such recruitments were, in the opinion of this Court, in complete negation of the guarantees contained in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Having said so, this Court did not upset the regularisations that had already taken place, regardless of whether such regularisations related to illegal or irregular appointments. The ratio of the decision in that sense was prospective in its application, leaving untouched that which had already happened before the pronouncement of that decision. This is evident from the following passage appearing in the decision: "We also clarify that regularization, if any a....
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.... hand. He submitted that regularisations granted by the State or its instrumentalities given in regard to appointments that were strictly speaking illegal had not been upset by this Court in Umadevi's case (supra). That being so, the impugned Enactment by which the appointment of the appellants- Stipendiary Engineers were regularised as Assistant Engineers must also be treated to have been saved from the rigour of the view taken in Umadevi's case (supra). There is merit in that contention. The decision in Umadevi's case (supra) stated the true legal position on the subject but having regard to the fact that several earlier decisions of this Court had sanctioned regularisation of those not regularly appointed, this Court was of the view that upsetting such regularisations would not only unsettle what stood settled but also gravely prejudice those who are benefitted from such orders of regularisation. There is no gainsaying that most of such persons who entered the public service initially without going through any open competitive selection process would have lost by passage of time their prospects of entering public service by legal course even if vacancies were available for such ....
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....ecruitment quota in the cadre of Assistant Engineers, yet they were entitled to argue that any appointment to the cadre ought to be made in accordance with the rules especially when regularisation of degree holder Stipendiary Engineers would give them advantage in seniority to the prejudice of the diploma holder Junior Engineers who may at their own turn be promoted in the cadre of Assistant Engineers. We have no hesitation in rejecting that contention. Diploma holder Junior Engineers were not, admittedly, eligible to be appointed as Assistant Engineers in the direct recruitment quota. They could not make a grievance against regularisation simply because of the fact that those regularised may figure above them in seniority. Seniority is an incident of appointment to the cadre which must be regulated by the relevant rules. Any possible prejudice to diploma holders in terms of seniority would not, therefore, make the regularisation unconstitutional or illegal and hence beyond the purview of para 53 in Umadevi's case (supra). 38. Mr. Patwalia, learned senior counsel appearing for the degree holder Junior Engineers who were also appointed on ad hoc basis as Assistant Engineers again....
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....tioned post without the benefit or protection of the interim order of any court or tribunal and (3) they should have possessed the minimum qualification stipulated for the appointment. Subject to these three requirements being satisfied, even if the appointment process did not involve open competitive selection, the appointment would be treated irregular and not illegal and thereby qualify for regularisation. Para 7 in this regard is apposite and may be extracted at this stage: "7. It is evident from the above that there is an exception to the general principles against "regularisation" enunciated in Umadevi, if the following conditions are fulfilled: (i) The employee concerned should have worked for 10 years or more in duly sanctioned post without the benefit or protection of the interim order of any court or tribunal. In other words, the State Government or its instrumentality should have employed the employee and continued him in service voluntarily and continuously for more than ten years. (ii) The appointment of such employee should not be illegal, even if irregular. Where the appointments are not made or continued against sanctioned posts or where t....
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....olution further envisaged their absorption in service after a period of two years. Not only that, appointments as Stipendiary Engineers were made on the basis of a selection process and on the basis of merit no matter determined de hors the relevant rules which provided for appointments to the cadre to be made only through the Public Service Commission. A reference to the Public Service Commission was no doubt considered unnecessary but the fact remains that appointment of unemployed degree holders as Stipendiary Engineers were made pursuant to a notification by which everyone who was unemployed and held an Engineering degree in any discipline was free to make an application. A large number of unemployed engineers responded to the notification inviting applications out of whom nearly 932 were selected by a Selection Committee constituted for the purpose. What is significant is that the empanelment of the unemployed degree holders for appointment as Stipendiaries did not invite any criticism from any quarter either as to the method of appointment or the fairness of the selection process. The process of appointment was at no stage questioned before the Court, a feature which is notab....
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....phase. They may be paid salary in the scale of Junior Engineers or in a consolidated stipend of Rs. 2,000/- per month. Absorption into regular posts may be done after two years on the basis of their performance." 46. In the counter-affidavit filed by the State Government before the High Court the State re-affirmed its commitment to the appointment of Stipendiary Engineers as Assistant Engineers on ad hoc basis. 47. In the circumstances and taking a holistic view of the matter, it cannot be said that the appointment of Stipendiary Engineers on ad hoc basis and their subsequent regularisation came as a side wind or was inspired by any political or other consideration. The Government, it appears, was from the very beginning, keen to utilise the services of unemployed Graduate Engineers selected on their merit by the Selection Committee and, therefore, remained steadfast in its efforts for achieving that purpose and in the process going even to the extent of getting them regularised by a legislative measure. Suffice it to say that the question whether regularisation was justified cannot be viewed in isolation or divorced from the context in which the same arises. 48. We may no....
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....law is, in our opinion, unnecessary at this stage in view of the Constitution Bench decision of this Court in Re: The Special Courts Bill, 1978 (1979) 1 SCC 380 where this Court undertook that exercise and noticed as many as thirteen propositions that bear relevance to any forensic determination of the validity of a law by reference to the equality clause enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution. Some of those principles were stated by this Court in the following words: "xxx xxx xxx (2) The State, in the exercise of its governmental power, has of necessity to make laws operating differently on different groups or classes of persons within its territory to attain particular ends in giving effect to its policies, and it must possess for that purpose large powers of distinguishing and classifying persons or things to be subjected to such laws. (3) The constitutional command to the State to afford equal protection of its laws sets a goal not attainable by the invention and application of a precise formula. Therefore, classification need not be constituted by an exact or scientific exclusion or inclusion of persons or things. The courts should not insist on....
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....to the object sought to be achieved by the Act. (8) The differentia which is the basis of the classification and the object of the Act are distinct things and what is necessary is that there must be a nexus between them. In short, while Article 14 forbids class discrimination by conferring privileges or imposing liabilities upon persons arbitrarily selected out of a large number of other persons similarly situated in relation to the privileges sought to be conferred or the liabilities proposed to be imposed, it does not forbid classification for the purpose of legislation, provided such classification is not arbitrary in the sense abovementioned. xxx xxx xxx (11) Classification necessarily implies the making of a distinction or discrimination between persons classified and those who are not members of that class. It is the essence of a classification that upon the class are cast duties and burdens different from those resting upon the general public. Indeed, the very idea of classification is that of inequality, so that it goes without saying that the mere fact of inequality in no manner determines the matter of constitutionality. xxx xxx xxx" ....
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....ore we do so, we need to dispel the impression that the writ petitioners were similarly situated as the Stipendiaries only because they were also working as ad hoc Assistant Engineers. There is no gainsaying that the legislation does not aim at regularising all ad hoc Assistant Engineers regardless of the circumstances in which such appointments came about. If that were so, the writ petitioners could well argue that since the object underlying the enactment is to regularise all ad hoc Assistant Engineers, they could not be left out without violating their fundamental rights under Article 14 of the Constitution. The impugned legislation, however, has limited its beneficence to ad hoc Assistant Engineers who came in as Stipendiary Engineers pursuant to a policy decision of the State Government that aimed at utilising their services and dealing with the unemployment problem in the State. That being the object, ad hoc Assistant Engineers appointed by other modes or in circumstances other than those in which Stipendiaries entered the service, cannot cry foul or invite the wrath of Article 14 upon the legislation. As a matter of fact, the State Government's resolve to give 5% vacancies t....
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....er the exclusion of establishments carrying on business or trade and employing less than 50 persons makes the classification under-inclusive, when it is seen that all factories employing 10 or 20 persons, as the case may be, have been included and that the purpose of the law is to get in unpaid accumulations for the welfare of the labour. Since the classification does not include all who are similarly situated with respect to the purpose of the law, the classification might appear, at first blush, to be unreasonable. But the Court has recognised the very real difficulties under which legislatures operate - difficulties arising out of both the nature of the legislative process and of the society which legislation attempts perennially to re-shape - and it has refused to strike down indiscriminately all legislation embodying classificatory inequality here under consideration. Mr. Justice Holmes, in urging tolerance of under- inclusive classifications, stated that such legislation should not be disturbed by the Court unless it can clearly see that there is no fair reason for the law which would not require with equal force its extension to those whom it leaves untouched." (emp....
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.... The law need not apply to all the persons in the sense of having a universal application to all persons. A law can be sustained if it deals equally with the people of well-defined class-employees of insurance companies as such and such a law is not open to the charge of denial of equal protection on the ground that it had no application to other persons." 56. We have in the light of the above no hesitation in holding that the legislation under challenge does not suffer from any constitutional infirmity and that the High Court was in error in having struck it down. 57. Having said that we are of the opinion that even when the challenge to the constitutional validity of the impugned enactment fails, the degree holder Junior Engineers currently working as ad hoc Assistant Engineers are entitled to the relief of regularisation in service, having regard to the fact that they have rendered long years of service as Assistant Engineers on ad hoc basis for 17 to 18 years in some cases. While it is true that those in service degree holders working as Junior Engineers were not the beneficiaries of the legislation under challenge, the fact remains, that they were eligible for appointmen....
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.... in the High Court entitled to the relief of regularisation with effect from the same date as the Validation Act granted such regularisation to the Stipendiary Engineers. 58. We shall advert to the question of inter se seniority between the two categories while we take up question No.3. But before we turn to question No.3 we need to briefly deal with the contention urged on behalf of some of the degree holder Junior Engineers represented by Mr. Dholakia who contended that since the Government resolution had provided for 5% quota for degree holder Junior Engineers the Government was duty bound to make appointments against that quota. It was urged that the cadre strength of the Assistant Engineers had not been presently determined by the Government nor were the figures given by the State Government accurate. The number of Junior Engineers who should have got appointed against 5% quota reserved for them would have been large, agreed Mr. Dholakia. To the extent of shortfall the State Government was bound to continue the process of appointment, contended the learned counsel. 59. There is, in our opinion, no merit in the submissions urged by Mr. Dholakia and by learned counsel for ....
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....on ad hoc basis as mentioned in the schedule. It further stipulates that all those regularised under the legislation shall be enbloc junior to the Assistant Engineers of that year appointed to the service in their respective discipline in their cadre in accordance with the provisions of the Recruitment Rules. Sub-section (3) of Section 3 makes the ad hoc service rendered by such Assistant Engineers count for the purpose of their pension, leave and increments and for no other purpose. 62. Appearing for the State of Orissa, Mr. Nageshwar Rao contended that grant of seniority to ad hoc Assistant Engineers regularised under the legislation w.e.f. the date they were appointed on ad hoc basis was legally permissible especially when the ad hoc appointments had continued without any interruption till their regularisation. Reliance in support was placed by Mr. Rao upon a Constitution Bench decision of this Court in Direct Recruit Class II Engineering Officers' Association v. State of Maharashtra and Ors. (1990) 2 SCC 715. The case at hand, according to the learned counsel, fell under proposition (B) formulated in the said decision. Grant of seniority from the date of initial appointments....
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....ised their service. There is, in the light of those two significant aspects, no room for holding that grant of seniority and other benefits referred to in Section 3(3) of the impugned Act were legally impermissible or violated any vested right of the in service Assistant Engineers appointed from any other source. Proposition A, in our opinion, deals with a situation where an incumbent is appointed to a post according to the rules but the question that arises for determination is whether his seniority should be counted from the date of his appointment or from the date of his confirmation in the said service. The corollary under proposition A, in our opinion, deals with an entirely different situation, namely, where the appointment is ad hoc and made as a stop-gap-arrangement in which case officiation in such post cannot be taken into consideration for seniority. Be that as it may, as between proposition A and B the case at hand falls more accurately under proposition B which permits grant of seniority w.e.f. the date the appointees first started officiating followed by the regularisation of their service as in the case at hand. 66. We may also refer to a three-Judge Bench of this....
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....s the appointments of these Junior Engineers from the notional date have to be cleared by the Public Service Commission and the appointments cannot be held to be regular appointments as long as they are not approved by the Public Service Commission. Xx xx xx To sum up, our conclusions are as under: (i) The weightage of four years in respect of upgraded Junior Engineers as provided in G.O. Ms. No. 559 has to be reckoned from the date of appointment and not the date of their acquiring the degree qualification; (ii) On the basis of that notional date, their inter-se seniority has to be fixed; (iii) The regularisation of the degree-holder Junior Engineers who passed the SQT by giving retrospective effect cannot be held to be illegal, and their seniority among themselves shall be subject to the order of ranking given by the Public Service Commission on the basis of the SQT; (iv) The Government shall prepare a common seniority list of the degree-holders Junior Engineers and the upgraded Junior Engineers on the above lines and that list shall be the basis for all the subsequent promotions. Promotions, if any, already given shall be rev....
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....ates to the seniority as between the petitioners and the direct recruits and such a question can arise only where there is no dispute regarding the entry of the officers concerned into the same Grade. In the instant case there is no impediment even under the Rules to treat these petitioners and others who are similarly situated as persons duly appointed to the posts in Grade IV because of the enabling provision contained in the Rule 16 thereof. Rule 16 as it stood at the relevant time read as follows : 16. The Government may relax the provisions of these rules to such extent as may be necessary to ensure satisfactory working or remove in-equitable results." (emphasis supplied) 69. The ratio of the decision in the above case was not faulted by the Constitution Bench of this Court in Direct Recruit's case (supra). As a matter of fact the Court approved the said decision holding that there was force in the view taken by this Court in that case. This Court observed: "In Narender Chadha v. Union of India the officers were promoted although without following the procedure prescribed under the rules, but they continuously worked for long periods of nearly 15-....
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....ngineer Junior Class I (Group A) and to make such up-gradation retrospective w.e.f. 28th February, 2009. IA No.8 of 2012 has been filed in the very same appeal in which the interveners have sought a direction against the State of Orissa to give effect to the up-gradation of posts considering inter se seniority of in-service degree holder Junior Engineers who are otherwise eligible for appointment against the vacancies reserved for direct recruits. In IA No.3 of 2009 in SLP No.29765 of 2008, the interveners seek permission to support the judgment of the High Court whereby the impugned legislation has been struck down as unconstitutional. Similarly, IAs filed in some other appeals either seek to support the judgment passed by the High Court or pray for permission to argue the case on behalf of one or the other party. 74. We have heard counsel for the interveners also at some length. We, however, do not consider it necessary to enlarge the scope of these proceedings by examining issues that are not directly related to the controversy at hand. Three questions that have primarily engaged our attention in these petitions relate to (a) the validity of the impugned Validation Act. (b) r....