Judgment

CHANDRACHUD, J.:- On the reorganisation of States on November 1, 1956 the respondent who was working as an Agricultural Overseer in the then State of Madhya Pradesh was allocated first to the State of Bombay and later to the State of Maharashtra. By a resolution dated February 17, 1958 the Government of Bombay equated the post of Agricultural Overseer with that of an Agricultural Assistant, Grade II. In July 1958 the respondent was promoted as an Agricultural Supervisor and in April 1967 he was appointed to the post of an Agricultural Officer.

2. On the reorganisation of States, a provisional combined seniority list of Agricultural Assistants, Grade II, was published by the Government of Maharashtra in 1961. That list was revised from time to time, and ultimately the Government of India approved the final seniority list which came to be published on May 29, 1973. The respondent has no grievance against his placement in that list, but his case is that under the seniority lists prepared from time to time by the State Government he was erroneously accorded a lower place of seniority with the result that persons who were in fact junior to him came to be promoted on the assumptio