Ghulam Mohammed, J.

1. These two writ petitions raise common questions of law relating to the process of selection of women candidates for appointment by the method of direct recruitment to the post of Junior Civil Judges in the Andhra Pradesh State Judicial Service(henceforth referred to as `Judicial Service’) and hence they are heard together and are disposed of by this common judgment. Since the facts are not in dispute, we prefer to set out the facts in WP No. 27080 of 20089, as they were narrated to us.

2. The writ petitioner possesses MA and LLB qualifications. He was enrolled as an Advocate with the Bar Council of Andhra Pradesh in November 2003 and has eversince been practicing at Ranga Reddy District Courts, Hyderabad. Incidentally, he belongs to Backward Class – D category (`BC-D’ for brevity).

3. The High Court of Andhra Pradesh has initiated the process of recruitment to 105 posts of Junior Civil Judges in Judicial Service through the notification dated 14.5.2007 calling for applications from qualified candidates - 84 of the notified vacancies are sought to be filled in by the method of `Direct Recruitment’ while the balance 21 are sought to be filled up by the method of `Recruitment by Transfer’ i.e., from the source of internal candidates working in various categories declared as eligible for such recruitment. We are concerned in these two cases only with the process of `Direct Recruitment’.

4. Rule 10 of the Andhra Pradesh State Judicial Service Rules (henceforth called as `Special rules’) has provided for reservation of appointments. Since it will have a bearing upon the controversy to be resolved herein, we prefer to extract it, hereinbelow:

“Rule 10. Reservation of appointment:- (1) The rule of special representation namely, Rule 22 in *[xxx] of the Andhra Pradesh State and Subordinate Service Rules, in so far as it relates to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, shall apply separately to the appointments to be made by direct recruitment and recruitment by transfer to the categories of Judicial Magistrates of the Second Class and Junior Civil Judges, and the reservation of appointment to these categories, in so far as it relates to the Backward Classes, shall be for the appointment to be made by direct recruitment only.

[G.O.Ms. No. 148, Home (Cts-A), Dt. 24.2.1979]

[The words “Part II” omitted by G.O. Ms. No. 121, Law, dt. 20.7.2001, w.e.f. 1.8.2001]

(2) The provisions relating to reservations made for appointment of women and carry forward vacancies there of as provided in rules 22 and 22-A of the Andhra Pradesh State and Subordinate Service Rules, 1996 shall apply for direct recruits.

Thus, Rule 10 of the Special rules has rendered applicable to the recruitment process, the Rule of Special representation provided for in favour of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and the Backward Classes, prescribed in a cyclic order in Rule 22 of the Andhra Pradesh State and Subordinate Service Rules (henceforth referred to as `General Rules’) as well as the Rule of Special Representation in favour of women candidates as contained in General Rule 22-A. Hence, the number of vacancies set apart for each of the reserved classes was accordingly notified in the Notification No. 1 of 2007, dated 14.5.2007. Out of a total of 20 vacancies provided for backward classes, the breakup amongst various groups is as follows:

BC-A - 6 ( 2 for women), BC-B - 8 (4 for women), BC-C - 1, BC-D-5 (1 for women)

Out of 12 vacancies reserved for schedule castes, 4 are provided for women and similarly out of 6 vacancies provided for schedule tribes, 2 are earmarked for women. The balance 46 vacancies are declared as open category vacancies. Out of them, 15 are shown reserved to be filled in with women candidates. Thus, the notification of vacancies has strictly complied with the requirement of providing for reservation in favour of schedule castes, schedule tribes and backward classes and also setting apart 33 1/3% of vacancies