JUDGMENT

VENKATARAMIAH, J. :— Some of the officials who have been directly appointed as Assistants in the Intelligence Bureau of the Government of India in the year 1957 filed a writ petition in the year 1976 in Civil Writ Petition No. 638 of 1976 on the file of the High Court of Delhi questioning the validity of the appointments of certain other Assistants in the Intelligence Bureau of whom some had been appointed prior to 1-2-1954 and the remaining had been appointed or absorbed as Assistants prior to the induction of the writ petitioners into service as Assistants and also the assignment of seniority to them over and above the petitioners in the Writ Petition. The said Writ Petition was dismissed by the learned single Judge. Aggrieved by the decision of the learned single Judge, the petitioners in the writ petition filed an appeal in the Letters Patent Appeal No. 6 of 1978 before a Division Bench of the High Court. The Division Bench allowed the appeal, set aside the judgment of the learned single Judge and held that the posts of Assistants which existed on 1-2-1954 had to be filled by persons who were eligible in terms of Paragraph 15 of the reorganisation Scheme of 1955 effect