JUDGMENT

SURINDER SINGH NIJJAR, J.

1. Leave granted in all the Special Leave Petitions.

2. These appeals are directed against the common judgment and final order dated 29th January, 2007 passed by the High Court of Judicature at Madras in Writ Petition Nos. 26990 and 26973 of 2005; 36096 of 2004, Writ Appeal No.500 of 2005, Writ Petition Nos. 31416 of 2004 and 9460 of 2005. By this order, the High Court dismissed the Writ Petitions and the Writ Appeal filed by the Appellant-Association.

3. Since the facts involved in the controversy in all the appeals are common, we shall make a reference to the facts as narrated by the High Court. This shall be supplemented by any additions made by the parties in this Court.

4. The facts noticed by the High Court are that the members of the Tamil Nadu Rural Development Engineers' Association (hereinafter referred to as 'Appellants') were initially appointed as 'Overseers' by the then Highways and Rural Works Department and posted exclusively to various Panchayat Unions for executing all the Civil works / Rural works in the Panchayat Unions of Tamil Nadu. Since they were earlier under the administrative control of the erstwhile Highways and Rural Work