Judgment

DESAI, J.:- Commissioned Officers belonging to Army Medical Corps (AMC for short), having post-graduate qualifications in different specialities at the time of obtaining commission have approached this Court under Article 32 complaining of a discriminatory treatment in the matter of granting ante-dating benefit which is directly linked to seniority and promotional prospects.

2. Petitioners in the first batch of petitions were granted commission in AMC between 1954 and 1963. Petitioner in the second petition was commissioned as a regular officer in AMC on March 15, 1970. There are in all 154 commissioned officers including the petitioners belonging to AMC who are similarly situated and who according to the petitioners suffered the same discriminatory treatment. The petition is not in a representative capacity. Petitioners assert that the decision in his group of petitions would affect roughly 147 other officers.

3. Petitioners held post-graduate qualifications in different branches of medical science and some of them held an approved wholetime appointment in a recognised civil hospital for a period of six months or more prior to their being commissioned in AMC.

4. There is a pr