Vilas V. Afzulpurkar, J.

A large number of batch of O.A.s was decided by the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal under the impugned orders herein and the O.A.s were dismissed. The applicants in all the O.A.s are Part-time Lecturers working in Vocational Colleges of the Government. All the applicants are aggrieved by the proceedings of the Commissioner of Intermediate Education passed with regard to each of the applicants whereby, the minimum time scale granted to them was withdrawn with retrospective effect and all of them had questioned their individual orders before the Tribunal in the respective O.A.s.

2. Various contentions were raised before the Tribunal by the applicants claiming that irrespective of their entitlement for regularization of their service, they are entitled to the minimum time scale in terms of the various orders passed by the Government to which, reference will be made herein at appropriate place. The Tribunal had examined the said contentions and negatived the same on legal as well as factual grounds by holding that none of the applicants were eligible to avail the said minimum time scale of pay and consequently impugned orders in each case withdrawing the said benefit was justified.

3. Consequent upon the dismissal of the O.A.s, this batch of writ petitions is filed by various applicants. Apart from the present batch of cases, one writ petition No.27668 of 2007 arising out of the O.A.No.7679 of 2006 came to be decided by a Division Bench of this Court. By order dated 02.04.2008, the said writ petition was dismissed upholding the impugned order of the Tribunal on the ground that petitioner does not satisfy the condition of minimum service of five years as on 25.11.1993 and also the relaxed condition as per G.O.Ms.No.101, Higher Education (IE. 1) Department, dated 29.07.2006 and consequentially not entitled to minimum time scale of pay. This Court therefore, approved the action of that Commissioner and Director of Intermediate Education in withdrawing the said benefit from the applicants.

4. The rest of the batches of writ petitions directed against the other O.A.s under common impugned order herein, came up for hearing before another Division Bend of this Court. It was contended by the learned counsel for the petitioners in the said batch that the earlier Division Bench which dismissed the writ petition No.2766i of 2007 had proceeded on the footing that the eligibility requirements for regularizatior of minimum time scale being one and the same and the petitioners being admittedly not satisfying the said requirements, an held disentitled for the minimum time scale.

5. The contention of the petitioners was therefore, that the said aspect of the regularization and entitlement for the minimum time scale being different am distinct, clubbing of the said two issues together and denying relief to the applicant was not justified. The later Division Bench which has considered the rest of the batch agreed with the said contentions of the petitioners and consequentially being unable to agree with the view of the firs Division Bench referred to above, directed the Registry to refer this batch of cases to full bench for final adjudication and consequentially, as per the orders of the Hon'ble the Chief Justice, these matters an listed for hearing before us.

6. We have heard Mis. M.Surende Rao, D.Linga Rao, Lakshma Reddy T.suryakaran Reddy, V.R.Reddy Kovvuri K.Narayana, Venkateswarlu Gummadavelli K.Satyanarayana Murthy, K.Srinivasc Prasad, K.S.V.subba Rao, appearing for the petitioners. Learned counsel for the petitioners contended that the policy of the Government to extend the minimum time scale of pay was as a result of the directions of the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal in O.A.No.45811 of 1991 dated 16.10.1992 and basing on the same directions, a scheme was formulated and the said scheme is enforced by issuing G.O.Ms.No.166 Education (CE.1) Department, dated 08.06.1994. Learned counsel has relied upon