( 1 ) THE petitioners (19) in number are all working as junior Laboratory Officers earlier designated as Technical Assistants, in the Machilipatnam unit of Bharat Electronics Limited, (for short the BEL ) a Public Sector Undertaking and an instrumentality of the State. A Brief History :

( 2 ) A company in the private sector by name "the Andhra Scientific Company limited" was established in 1926 in machilipatnam, Krishna District in the state of Andhra Pradesh, for the manufacture of laboratory and educational equipment. The company was engaged in the manufacture of optical instruments required for medical, survey and industrial applications. It also entered the defense field and manufactured optics based components for the defense requirements. The company had fallen sick and was closed during 1971-72. In 1972, the Ministry of Defence, in the public interest, took over the management of the Company and ran it for about a decade. The Andhra Scientific Company limited (Acquisition and Transfer of undertakings) Act 1983 was enacted by the Parliament whereby inter alia the assets and liabilities of the Company were taken over by the Union. By another order of the union Government, the unit of the erstwhile andhra Scientific Company Limited was vested with an existing Public Sector undertaking, Bharat Electronics Limited, bangalore, in the year 1983. As a result, the Machilipatnam establishment became one of the 9 units of the BEL.

( 3 ) THE petitioners, Graduates in science B. Sc. , (MPC) were recruited at the non-worker - supervisory level as technical Assistant Trainees II on various dates, during 1983-88. On recruitment, they underwent on-job training for a period of one year and on completion were confirmed in Wage group VII in the Machilipatnam unit of the BEL. The relevance of absorption in Wage group-VII will be dealt with during the course of this judgment, as it is relevant to the lis presented herein. Suffice it to record, at this stage, that the petitioners on recruitment into service were placed in Wage group VII along with diploma Holders who were also recruited as Technical Assistant Trainees. The diploma Holders were also recruited in the machilipatnam Unit as Technical Assistants ii after a one year on-job training, as were the petitioners. Technical Assistants both science Graduates and Diploma holders, were working in integrated and complimentary operations in the optical instrumentation area. There was no Diploma in Optics offered by any educational institution in the country, either at the time of recruitment of the petitioners and the other Diploma holders during the year 1983- 88 or even till date. These are undisputed facts.

( 4 ) DURING the period of the initial management of the Machilipatnam Unit by the B. E. L. , there was no defined promotion policy formally expressed in any instrument either by way of Rules or administrative instructions. The Technical Assistants of the Machilipatnam Unit of the BEL were being promoted from one Wage group to the next without any clear cut policy on promotions or distinction between the science Graduates and Diploma holders or those with I. T. I, qualifications. It also requires to be noticed that the Machilipatnam unit is the only optical instrumentation unit in the country among the nine (9) units administered by the B. E. L. As no specialized qualification in optics at the Diploma level was imparted in the country in any educational institution, in the Machilipatnam unit Diploma holders in other disciplines like Mechanical Engineering and Science graduates with M. P. C qualifications were recruited as technical Assistants and imparted in-employment training and then employed in the Optical Engineering departments.

( 5 ) ON account of the specialized operations of the Machilipatnam Unit of the 2005 (3) ALD" b. E. L. in the optical engineering area, the recruitment policy in effect was always distinct from other units of the B. E. L. At the Machilipa