Chinnappa Reddy, J.

(1) SEVERAL hundred Railway Engineers who should have been busy elsewhere, building bridges, laying-or doubling tracks and so on have found themselves in the corridors of this court in pursuit of the loaves of career. Quite a contingent was present in court anxiously watching the proceedings and listening with rapt attention to every word that fell from counsel and judge. One could not help wondering whether this multi-tiered,multi-varna service-system was itself not productive of a career neurosis, destructive of the very efficiency which it sought to achieve.

(2) IN this case, as in most other service matters that reach this court, the questions which arise for, consideration relate to classification, confirmation, seniority, promotion etc., questions which appear to agitate the minds of the members of all services. Administrators seeking to find solutions to some of the problems very soon discover that their solutions are no more than illusions and have created other problems. First one party and then another party, all seek the protection of the court. The court is no expert administrator. Lacking expertise, lacking the administrators access to information, there are obvious limitations to what the court may do, The, "court may at best attempt to solve some basic legal issues. That the court strives to do without disturbing the administrative equilibrium.

(3) THE service with which we are concerned in this -case is the -Indian Railway Service of engineers Class I.. While the petitioners claim that they were appointed to this service after selection by the Union public service commission, the respondents allege that the petitioners were appointed as temporary Engineers only, constituting a special class and service by themselves, and were not -appointed to the Indian Railway Service of Engineers, Class I at all.

(4) IT appears that from the time of the first, fiye-year plan onwards several important assignments such as the construction of major bridges, new lines, doubling of electrification of existing lines etc. , were taken up by the Civil Engineering Department of the Indian Railways. It became necessary to create a number of temporary posts of Class I (Indian Railway Service of Engineers) and Class II Engineers to carry out these works. In 1955 it was estimated that about 200 additional engineers would be necessary within the next two years to deal with the planning, surveying, estimating and construction of the multitude of the proposed development works. It was not thought possible to meet the additional personnel requirements from existing sources, which were, direct recruitment to Class I on the basis of the results of a competitive examination and promotion to Class II from Class III. Though the conversion of some of the temporary posts into permanent ones might meet part of the requirement, it was thought, recruitment through normal channel to such posts would -necessarily have to be spread over a period of years so as to avoid bunching of officers within particular age group. It was, therefore, decided to recruit, in the first instance, fifty temporary Engineers immediately. Their scale of pay was to be the same as that of the Indian Railway Service of Engineers. The age limit was to be 25 to 35 years so as to attract engineers with practical experience. The appointments were to be normally made on the minimum of the time-scale but persons with previous experience could be fitted into the scale at a higher stage. As the posts were to be temporary, it was decided that an incentive should be given to attract suitable candidates by reserving a proportion of the permanent vacancies in the Indian Railway Service of Engineers each year for being filled by such temporary Engineers. Six vacancies in the Indian Railway Service of Engineers were to be so earmarked annually to start with. The quota could be increased later. On permanent appointment to the India