JUDGMENT

S.B. Sinha, J. — These appeals arising out of a judgment and order of the Allahabad High Court dated 4.4.2003 were taken up for hearing together and are being disposed of by this common judgment.

2. The Respondent No.2-Mani Kant Gupta, Respondent No.3-Virendra Kumar Tyagi and Respondent No.4-Sukhpal Singh and the intervener herein (now Respondent No.6-Vijay Kumar) were appointed in U.P. Jal Nigam on 5.2.1979, 12.12.1978, 16.11.1978 and 15.11.1977 respectively. Several town planning authorities including Ghaziabad Development Authority were created by Uttar Pradesh Urban Planning and Development Act, 1973 (‘the Act’, for short) with a view to provide for development of certain areas of State of Uttar Pradesh according to the plans and for other matters incidental thereto. Section 4 of the Act empowers the State Government to issue a notification constituting a development authority for any development area. In exercise of the said power, the State of U.P. constituted various development authorities, including the Ghaziabad Development Authority. By reason of U.P. Act No.21 of 1985, the State of U.P. inserted Section 5-A in the said Act to create centralized services of all th