Judgment

KRISHNA IYER, J.: - A senior civil servant of the Indian Administrative Service, brought in by promotion and borne on the cadre of the Assam State (now of the joint cadre of Assam and Meghalaya), seeks, in this petition under Article 32, redress of alleged infraction of his fundamental right to equality under Article 16 ,vis-a-vis certain direct recruits. We will proceed to scan the case to see if, on the merits, this public servant has suffered a big illegal blow by diminishing his length of service, that being the core of the controversy. For this reason, we are not disposed to rebuff the petitioner in limine on the preliminary objection urged by the-learned Solicitor General. To bar the processual doors of justice 1ike harsh judicial Janitors if one has a right to relief - is the reluctant refuge of a Court - and that at the instance of the State, at the final stage.

2. Stripped of details and in simple terms the gravamen of the petitioner s grievance is that while he is eligible to be placed above serial number 34 in the I. A. S. Gradation List (Annexure F), he has been illegally pitch-forked into serial number 65. His real length of service has been lopped off by denial