(1) THIS order will dispose of a preliminary objection raised on behalf of the respondents that these writ petitions should be dismissed because the petitioners have suppressed certain material facts from this court and have also tried to abuse the process of court in the manner hereinafter appearing.

(2) WRIT Petition No. 507 of 1989 has been filed by the All India State Bank Officers Federation (hereinafter called the Federation) through its President. It was filed in this court on 21/04/1989 and was sup- ported by an affidavit of Umed Singh, President of the Federation, affirming the contents of the petition to be true to his personal knowledge. By this writ petition the Federation seeks to impugn a new promotion policy decided upon by the State Bank of India (hereinafter called the Bank). In paragraph 9(mm) of the petition it is stated that the petitioners are approaching this court in great haste as the Bank is moving with great speed and is likely to constitute Departmental Promotion Committees and declare the results of the interviews in implementation of the new promotion policy within the next two or three days. In the affidavit of Umed Singh, referred to earlier, it has been stated in paragraph 4 that the petitioners have not filed any other similar writ petition in this Honourable court or any other High court.

(3) IN the counter-affidavit filed on behalf of the Bank, it is stated that the statement in paragraph 4 of the petition in support of the writ petition is false. It is pointed out that the Federation through its Deputy General secretary had filed Writ Petition No. 5286 of 1989 in the High court of Andhra Pradesh at Hyderabad, along with an application No. 6969 of 1989, seeking stay of the promotion policy. On 13/04/1989 the Andhra Pradesh High court admitted the writ petition but the learned Judge rejected the application for interim stay observing "that he was prima facie satisfied that the selection is going on according to a fair procedure and that there is no need to stay any of the interviews or the appointments". It is further pointed out that another petition has also been filed by the State Bank of India Officers Association (Karnataka) having its office at Bangalore in the Karnataka High court, being Writ Petition No. 7848 of 1989. It is, therefore, submitted that the petitioners have suppressed from this court the material fact that a writ petition had already been filed by them in the Andhra Pradesh High court and that an application for stay had been made and rejected by the said court. A second objection to the maintainability of the petition raised on behalf of the Bank in paragraph 3 of its counter-affidavit was that since promotions had already been made they could not be disturbed "as the promoted officers have not been made parties". It is common ground that 58 officers had been promoted w.e.f. 24/04/1989 but no steps werfe taken to implead these officers, who would be directly affected as a result of the prayer made in the writ petition,

(4) TO these objections, a rejoinder wa,s Filed on behalf of the petitioners, supported again by an affidavit of Umed Singh on 23/10/1989. The two objections raised by the Bank were sought to be refuted in the following manner: _

"1. That the contents of para 1 are denied and it is reiterated that the writ petition is maintainable as there is clear violation of fundamental rights guaranteed to the petitioners. The writ petition filed in the Andhra Pradesh High court has since been withdrawn as per the undertaking given to the Supreme court during arguments on 24/04/1989. The deponent had no knowledge of the writ petition filed before the High court of Andhra Pradesh, hence as soon as it came to his knowledge the same has been withdrawn. Even otherwise the deponent understands that in the said writ petition the stay of interviews was prayed and the same was declined on representation made by the respondent Bank. It is indeed