B. SUBHASHAN REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THE two petitioners in this writ petition are aggrieved by their not being promoted to the post of Deputy General Manager (Engineering ). The writ petition has been filed directly in the High Court without the intervention of the Andhra Pradesh administrative Tribunal. Petitioners plead that since they are challenging the very provisions of the Administrative Tribunals act, 1985 (hereinafter referred to as "the tribunals Act") as also its inapplicability, they need not resort to alternative remedy. Reliance is placed on the judgment of the supreme Court in L. Chandra Kumar vs. Union of India1.

( 2 ) THE complaint of the petitioners is that even though they are borne on the cadre of the service of Hyderabad Metropolitan water Supply and Sewerage Board (hereinafter referred to as "the Board"), their claims for promotion from the posts they are holding viz. Manager (Engineering) to the posts of Deputy general Manager (Engineering) are being ignored and the personnel from the A. P. Public Health and Municipal Engineering service are being drawn and preferred for appointment to that post, even though the said personnel borne on the cadre under a. P. Public Health and Municipal engineering Service are Government servants and have not been either regularised or absorbed into the service of the Board.

( 3 ) MR. S. Ramachandra Rao, the learned senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners raised the following contentions: (I) As the petitioners are directly recruited in the Board s service and completed probation are entitled for promotion to the posts of deputy General Manager, which is the senior post to the post of manager (Engineering) which they are holding and not the impleaded respondents. (II) The Board is not the local authority and the definition of local authority in Section 3 (31) of general Clauses Act is inapplicable for the cause espoused for promotion and that the said definition cannot be imported into the Tribunals Act. (III) In so far as the State of Andhra pradesh is concerned, administrative Tribunal can be constituted for service matters only under Article 371-D of the constitution and not under the tribunals Act. (IV) As there is no Chairman appointed to the Tribunal and the present chairman is an Acting Chairman being from Administrative Service and not being a Judge or former judge of the High Court, it cannot be said that there is a validly constituted Tribunal so as to drive the petitioners to avail the remedy before the Tribunal at the first instance; and (V) The petitioners also need not resort to Tribunal s remedy as the very constitutional validity of Sections 5, 6, 8,12, 15 (2), 18, 35 and 36 of the tribunals Act are challenged and the High Court is the only forum to adjudicate on the same.

( 4 ) MR. E. Manohar, the learned Senior counsel appearing for the respondents raises a preliminary objection as to the maintainability of this writ petition because of the dicta laid down by the Supreme court in L. Chandra Kumar vs. Union of India (supra ). It is needless to mention that a further hearing as to the merits of plea regarding the service conditions and the entitlement of the petitioners for promotion in preference to the impleaded respondents has to be gone into depending upon the issue of maintainability of this writ petition without the intervention of the administrative Tribunal.

( 5 ) SIMILAR plea was raised in Writ petition Nos. 8411 and 8412 of 2000 and a learned Single Judge of this Court by his judgment dated 30-6-2000 dismissed the writ petitions as not maintainable accepting the plea that the Tribunal has to be approached first and the judicial review by the High Court can only be the next, if an adverse order is passed. It is stated that the writ Appeals 824 and 831 of 2000 are pending against the said judgment of the learned Single Judge. But, the said Writ appeals have not been posted along with this writ petition and both the learned senior Counsel have argued

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