JUDGMENT

Deepak Gupta, J.

Leave granted.

2. Respondent No.1, South East Central Railway (for short the SECR) issued an advertisement on 15.12.2010 inviting applications for filling up 5798 posts in the pay scale of Rs.5200Rs. 20,200 + Grade Pay of Rs.1800/- in Raipur, Bilaspur and Nagpur divisions and workshops. The claim of the original writ petitioners who filed applications before the Central Administrative Tribunal (for short CAT) was that as per the existing instructions the select list was prepared with 20% extra candidates. Therefore, the result of 6995 candidates was declared who were successful. The appellants fall in the category of extra 20%. The SECR did not make the appointments from these 20% extra candidates though 624 posts remained unfilled in the general category itself. The appellants who fall in the 20% category of extra candidates filed applications before the CAT praying that the SECR be directed to fill in the unfilled vacancies from this list of 20% candidates. This application was rejected by the Tribunal. The writ petition filed by the appellants was also rejected. Hence these appeals.

3. To understand the issue at hand it would be pertinent to refer to th