JUDGMENT

M. Jagannadha Rao, J.—Leave granted in all the special leave petitions.

2. These Civil Appeals arise out of several writ petitions filed in the High Court of Jammu & Kashmir in which common judgment was deliv­ered on 14-12-1998. The judgment of the High Court deals with power of Government to appoint officers on promotion temporarily for periods of more than six months without consulting the Public Service Commission, grant of seniority to such promotees in respect of service within their quota and also outside quota. Validity of the order passed by the State Government on 2-1-1998 regularising, at one stroke, several ad hoc promotions made between 25.5.1973 to 31.12.1996 was in issue, so far as the Electrical Wing was concerned. We are concerned only with the regularisation of ad hoc Assistant Engineers and Assistant Executive Engineers (See Point 2 in the High Court Judgment). The High Court held that ad hoc/stop-gap service of promotees could not be regularised. A contention was also raised before us by the direct recruits that stop gap or ad hoc service of promotees could never be regularised and only service rendered in a post where a person if appointed “according to r