JUDGMENT

KRISHNA IYER, J.— These two writ petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution involve identical, though familiar, constitutional questions based on Articles 14 and 16 covered by rulings of this court. The setting too is familiar as also the submissions. For these reasons a brief narration of the facts, a terse enunciation of the law and a common judgment for both will suffice.

2. The Tamil Nadu State had schools at the various levels, primary, middle and high, run by the public sector consisting of Panchayats, District Boards and Government. Progressively, Panchayat Schools were absorbed by District Board and, eventually those managed by the latter were taken over by Government.

3. We are not concerned with the teaching and non-teaching staff under the Panchayats and their service fortunes when fused into District Board Service, except to notice that, in integration, the date of entry into District Board service not the service under the Panchayat, was regarded as relevant for purposes of reckoning seniority. The next operation i.e. District Board staff, teaching and non-teaching being sewn into government service is what now falls for consideration by the court. A few skeletal facts to unfold the basic legal contentions alone need be recounted.

4. All District Board schools were taken over with effect from 1-4-1970 and, inevitably, the issue of merger of the staff confronted Government.

5. At the time of issuance of G.O. No. 761 dated 16th May, 1970, which organised the absorption of the teaching and non-teaching staff into Government service from the District Board service, Government decided to keep the personnel so absorbed as a separate service in the Education Department named the Tamil Nadu Educational Subordinate Service. The ministerial service, which related to the non-teaching staff, also was kept separate. Of course, all schools to be opened after 1-4-1970 were to be Government schools and so the dichotomy between the staff of erstwhile District Board schools and Government schools no longer persisted. The direct consequence of this immiscible maintenance of the two separate services was that the promotional prospects then available for Government employees were not open to the former District Board servants on their reincarnation as Government servants. This, naturally gave rise to heart burning and its manifestation in a democratic set-up, agitation, representation and interpellations in the legislature.

6. The next development in the fortunes of the former District Board schools employees came when G.O. No. 1786 of October 17, 1974 was issued. Here Government recapitulated the position after 1-4-1970 and considered afresh the question of integration of the two services, the Government schools servants being called the A wing and the staff of the former District Board schools being referred to as B wing. In the considered view of the Government, complete integration of A and B wings was administratively difficult and so they were kept separate as two wings of the Tamil Nadu Educational Subordinate Service and the Tamil Nadu Educational Service. Certain amelioratory measures were taken in opening up better prospects and avenues of promotion for the new arrivals from the District Board schools. Persumably, this half-way house arrangement was hardly a sufficient appeasement, and Government was again agitated over the question. The pressure of social justice brought to bear on Government through many channels including the houses of the legislature, persuaded the State to overhaul the entire pattern of integration and fitment of the two wings in a common seniority list. Government ratiocinated on the question thus:

"Ever since taking over the B wing personnel as full-fledged Government servants from 1-4-70 it was being repeatedly represented to Government that it would not be equitable to deny them for ever the advantages available to their counterparts in the A wing when persons of both the wings are doing iden