Judgment

BHAGWATI, J.:- These writ petitions and appeals are broadly divisible into two groups, one group consisting of Writ Petition No. 385 of 1969 and Civil Appeals Nos. 601-605 and 954-955 of 1972 and the other consisting of Writ Petition No. 218 of 1970. We shall first state the facts in regard to Writ Petition No. 385 of 1969 and Civil Appeals Nos. 601-605 and 954-955 of 1972 and then proceed to deal with Writ Petition No. 218 of 1970 which raises a slightly different dispute.

2. Writ Petition No. 385 of 1969 and Civil Appeals Nos. 601-605 and 954-955 of 1972 concern a dispute which has been going on since the last over fifteen years in regard to absorption and integration of Supervisors of the erstwhile State of Hyderabad in the Engineering Service of the reorganised State of Andhra Pradesh. It would be convenient to start the narration of facts with a description of the organization and structure of the Engineering Service in the erstwhile State of Hyderabad, for the petitioners/appellants were Supervisors belonging to that Service immediately prior to the reorganization of the States on 1st November, 1956 and it is their contention that on absorption and integration into the Engineering Service of the newly formed State of Andhra Pradesh, equality of opportunity has been denied to them by the State of Andhra Pradesh and their conditions of service have been altered to their disadvantage without complying with the requirement of law. The Hyderabad Service of Engineers consisted of two sections, one called State Service and the other called Subordinate Service. The State Service comprised of two classes, namely, Class I and Class II. Class I consisted of superior posts of Chief Engineer, Superintending Engineer and Executive Engineer and Junior Scale posts of Assistant Engineers, while Class II consisted of posts of Sub-Engineers. The Subordinate Service consisted, inter alia, of posts of Supervisors, Sub-Overseers Tracers, Stores Managers etc. in descending order of rank. The posts in the State Service were gazetted posts; while those in the Subordinate Service were non-gazetted. The rules of recruitment to the posts in State Service as well as Subordinate Service were made by the Rajpramukh of the Hyderabad State by a notification dated 28th May, 1954 in exercise of powers conferred under the proviso to Article 309 of the Constitution. The posts of Sub-Overseers, according to these rules, which may for the sake of convenience be described as the Hyderabad Rules, were to be filled by direct recruitment from amongst persons who possessed LCE, LME or LEE or equivalent diploma or certificate of any recognized institution. There was a certificate course called the Upper Subordinate (hereinafter referred to as US) Course which was conducted by the Osmania Engineering College up to 1951 and thereafter from 1952 it was replaced by another course called the Overseers Civil Engineering (hereinafter briefly referred to as OCE) Course which was also a certificate course conducted by the Osmania Engineering College. The US and OCE certificates awarded by the Osmania Engineering College were regarded as sufficient qualifications for direct recruitment to the posts of Sub-Overseers. The posts next above those of Sub-Overseers in the hierarchy were those of Supervisors. Fifty per cent of the posts of Supervisors were to be filled by direct recruitment from amongst persons who were either graduates in civil or mechanical engineering of a recognized University or possessed "a diploma or a certificate from an institution recognized by the Institute of Engineers (India) as exempting from Parts A and B of its Associated Membership Examination , while the remaining fifty per cent were to be filled by promotion of Sub-Overseers subject to the condition that Sub-Overseers who held only US or OCE certificates should have put in at least six years service. It was common ground between the parties that US and OCE certificates of Osmania Engineer