JUDGMENT :

Anil R. Dave, J.

1. Leave granted in all the special leave petitions.

2. Being aggrieved by the judgment delivered in D.B. Civil Special Appeal (Writ) No.431 of 2012 in S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.9843 of 2011 dated 19th July, 2012, delivered by the High Court of Rajasthan, the appellant-State of Rajasthan has filed the present set of appeals.

3. As all the appeals arise out of a common judgment delivered by the Rajasthan High Court, all the appeals were heard together at the request of the learned counsel appearing for the concerned parties.

4. The facts giving rise to the present litigation, in a nutshell, are as under:

Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology (hereinafter called ‘the University’) is an autonomous body performing the function of making provisions for imparting education in different branches of study, particularly Agriculture, Horticulture, Veterinary Science, Animal Husbandry etc. to the students and is constituted under the provisions of the Rajasthan Agricultural University, Udaipur Act, 2000 (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Act’). The University is the employer of other respondents, who had been either working under the University