Judgment

MADON, J.:- On January 26, 1950, when the Constitution of India came into force, under Art. 1 read with the First Schedule to the Constitution. India became a Union of States consisting of nine Part A States, nine Part B States and ten Part C States. Under Art. 3, Parliament has the power by law to form a new State by separation of territory from any State or by uniting two or more States or parts of States or by uniting any territory to a part of any State; increase the area of any State, diminish the area of any State; alter the boundaries of any State; or alter the name of any State. By reason of repeated reorganizations of States, the Union of India today consists of twenty-two States and nine Union territories and it is difficult to visualize when this process of fragmentation of India will end and the practice of sacrificing the sense of oneness in being an Indian an the altar of parochial and linguistic chauvinism will stop. These reorganizations have resulted in benefit to some, detriment to others and bewilderment to many. Each reorganization has brought in its wake a host of problems mostly relating to those in services of the States, many of them still unsolved.

2. We are concerned in these Appeals only with the reorganization effected by the Bombay Reorganization Act, 1960 (Act No. 11 of 1960), which divided the State of Bombay into the State of Maharashtra and the State of Gujarat. At the commencement of the Constitution, the territory of the State of Bombay comprised the territories which before the commencement of the Constitution were comprised in the Province of Bombay. Saurashtra was then a Part B State and Kutch a Part C State. Under the States Reorganization Act, 1956 (Act No. 37 of 1956), certain territories of the State of Bombay were transferred to other States, parts of the territories of other States were transferred to the State of Bombay and the territories of the State of Saurashtra and the State of Kutch were comprised in the new State of Bombay which emerged as a result of this reorganization. Part X of this Act consisting of sections 114 to 118 made provisions with respect to All-India Service and other services. Section 115 made provisions relating to other services. Under it, allotment of personnel of the State services serving in a reorganized State as existing on the date of the reorganization of States was to be made either to a successor State or to the original State in the manner provided therein.

3. Each Act providing for reorganization of States contains similar provisions. Thus, a transfer of territories results in a transfer of service personnel. Those who have been so transferred have found themselves higher or lower in seniority in the same cadre than in their original State. The question of corresponding posts and "the deemed date of appointment" has been a knotty one and much administrative ingenuity has been applied in unravelling the tangle created by political expediency. Solutions to this question have resulted in giving an advantage to some in promotional matters while the hopes of promotion of others have foundered between the Scylla of political expediency and the Charybdis of administrative ingenuity. Subsequent reorganizations involving the same States have led to these problems multiplying like Pelion piled on Ossa. The second reorganization of the State of Bombay by the Bombay Reorganization Act, 1960, has not proved an exception to this rule and the problems raised by it have reached this Court but even the judgments of this Court have failed to provide a final solution as is illustrated by the present Appeals.

4. As we are concerned in these Appeals with services other than All India Services, we need refer only to those provisions of the Bombay Reorganization Act which concern these services. Sub-sections (1) to (3) and (6) of Section 81 of the said Act provide as follows :

81. Provisions relating to other services. -

(1) Every person who, immediately before the a