ORDER :

1. Leave granted.

2. The present appeal has been filed against the judgment and order dated 28th June, 2013 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir at Srinagar whereby, the Letters Patent Appeal preferred by the appellants herein was dismissed.

3. Briefly stated the facts which give rise to the present appeal are as follows:

4. In the year 1998 the Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board, Srinagar issued an Advertisement Notification No.4 of 1998 dated 15th October, 1998 calling upon the persons to apply for the post of Technician-III with minimum qualification of Matric with ITI trained in Electrical/Mechanical/Welder/Black Smith. The respondents herein were all Matric with ITI trained personnel. They applied for the post of Technician-III. However they were not selected on the ground that they had secured lesser marks than what the last selected person had obtained. The last selected candidate had obtained 56.23 marks whereas the contesting respondents had obtained marks ranging from 45.47 to 55.17. The respondents preferred a writ petition being SWP No.1706 of 2000 which was initially dismissed. It was taken up in appeal by filing LPA No.20/2007