Judgment

Arijit Pasayat, J.—Leave granted.

2. Challenge in this appeal is to the judgment rendered by a Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court in a Letters Patent Appeal. This is practically the second journey of the parties to this Court. Earlier in State of Uttaranchal and Ors. v. Sidharth Srivastava and Ors. (2003(9) SCC 336) connected issues were considered.

3. The factual background in a nutshell is as follows:-

Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (in short ‘UPPSC’) published advertisement inviting applications for 544 posts of J.E. Civil/Technical (507 Civil + 37 Technical). The result of selection was published on 7.1.2000. The UPPSC sent its recommendations to the U.P. Government on 30.10.2000. The U.P. Government forwarded the recommendations on 31.10.2000 to the Chief Engineer’s Office, Hill Cadre, Almora. The separate State of Uttaranchal came into existence on 9.11.2000. U.P. Government forwarded the UPPSC recommendations in respect of posts in Hill Cadre to the Government of Uttaranchal. On 29.8.2001, Government of Uttaranchal issued the order not to appoint the selected candidates mentioning two reasons that - (1) the new reservation policy of the State of Uttaran