ORDER

1. Leave granted. Even though these appeals have a long and chequered history but it is not necessary to go into greater details thereof as on account of earlier orders passed by either the Full Benches of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh or by this Court, several questions have already been answered. However, a thumbnail sketch of the facts of the case would still be necessary to be dealt with which we will advert to.

2. These appeals have been preferred by the High Court of Punjab and Haryana against the common Full Bench judgment and order dated 27-5-2008 passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court at Chandigarh in several civil writ petitions preferred by the respondents herein.

3. The whole controversy had arisen on account of certain alleged irregularities having been committed by the then Chairman of the Punjab Public Service Commission (for short "the Commission") Shri Ravinder Pal Singh Siddhu, who had allegedly shown favours to many candidates who had appeared for Punjab Civil Services, Judicial Branch, by awarding more marks and then recommending for their appointments on extraneous considerations.

4. The Full Bench of the High Court passed the following directions:

"The petitioners in respect of 1998, 1999 and 2000 batches are ordered to be reinstated and the appointment letters earlier issued by the a State Government to the petitioners, namely, Ms Parveen Bali, Ms Manisha Jain, S/Shri Avtar Singh Barda, Mahesh Kumar, Balwinder Kumar, Harprit Singh, Gurkirpal Singh Sekhon and Tarantaran Singh Bindra, except for Rajwinder Kaur Bhatti (since deceased), relating to 2001 batch are ordered to be restored and thereafter, the respondent High Court is directed to issue posting orders to all the petitioners pertaining to b 1998-2000 batches and also of the eight petitioners aforementioned in respect of 2001 batch, within a period of three months from today.

However, it is directed that the petitioners relating to 1998-2000 batches shall not be entitled to salaries for the period they remained out of job until the date of their reinstatement, but the said period shall be counted as the period spent on duties for the purpose of determining qualifying c service for pension and other purposes, including grant of increments, etc. Non-performance of duties for the said period shall not be treated as a break in service."

However certain other directions were also issued by the Full Bench but we are not concerned with that part of the direction as the same is not the subject-matter of challenge in these appeals before us.

5. Before the pronouncement of the impugned judgment in these appeals by the Full Bench, earlier the Full Bench had also considered similar issues in various writ petitions filed by the respondents which came to be disposed of by the Full Bench on 7-8-2003. Against this earlier Full Bench judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court passed on 7-7-2003, the unsuccessful petitioners filed a civil appeal. This civil appeal came to be disposed of by the two learned Judges of this Court in Inderpreet Singh Kahlon v. State of Punjab.

6. After giving its anxious consideration to the whole issue involved in the matter, two learned Judges of this Court were of the considered opinion that it was not permissible to terminate the services of all the officers, without attempting to segregate the tainted from the untainted officers. Thus, obviously to complete the said exercise, as opined by two learned Judges of this Court, the matter was remanded to the High Court to constitute two committees for the aforesaid purposes, one with regard to judicial officers and another with regard to executive officers.

7. The relevant paras of the judgment of Inderpreet Singh Kahlon are reproduced herein below: (SCC pp. 400-01, paras 93-95)

"93. We must, however, express our satisfaction that no candidate for the year 2001 has been appointed. It is one thing to say that having regard to the nature of selection process, no