W.P.No.8851 of 2008 was instituted by one Sri N. Satyanarayana Murthy who was then working as Deputy Manager (Marketing) with the first respondent-Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Oil Seeds Growers Federation Limited, challenging the appointment of respondents 2 & 3 as Managers through proceedings dated 26.12.2007 without considering his case. The same individual has instituted W.P.No.11944 of 2008 challenging the appointment of the third respondent therein as Manager through proceedings dated 07.05.2008. W.P.No.16535 of 2008 was instituted by one Sri K.V. Ranga Reddy challenging the appointment of the fourth respondent as Manager through proceedings dated 26.12.2007 as bad. The fourth writ petition W.P.No.6453 of 2011 has been filed by the Employees Association of the Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Oil Seeds Growers Federation, the second respondent therein (henceforth referred to, for short as Corporation), challenging the appointment of respondents 4, 5, 6 and 7 as Managers. All these four cases substantially deal with the same question of law and hence, they are heard together and disposed of by this common order.

Heard Sri C.V. Mohan Reddy, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of Sri V. Padmanabha Rao, learned Counsel for the petitioners and Sri P. Sri Raghu Ram, learned Senior Counsel on behalf of Ms. Mary Desai, learned counsel for the contesting unofficial respondents and Sri T. S. Praveen Kumar, learned counsel on behalf of the Corporation.

The Corporation is a public sector undertaking which was established in the year 1981 in collaboration with National Diary Development Board to increase the oil seeds production. Initially, the federation used to work at the state level and the cooperative oil seeds unions used to function at divisional level and subsequently the primary agricultural societies at each village level have been added up. Due to the financial crisis, the unions established at Gadwal in Mahabubnagar District and Piler in Chittoor District, have been closed down. There afterwards, the cadre strength has been approved by the Registrar of Cooperative Societies in terms and in accordance with Section 116 (C) of the Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Societies Act, 1964. In pursuance of earlier round of litigation, common seniority list of all categories of employees has been published on 15.05.2007. It is the claim of the petitioners that there are seven different categories of Manager/Divisional Officer which are approved in the cadre of the Corporation. They are:

1. Manager (Personal & Administration or HRD)

2. Manager (Finance)

3. Manager (Marketing)

4. Manager (Plants & Projects)

5. Manager (Procurement & Inputs)

6. Manager (Oil Palm Development) and

7. Manager (Divisional Officer at Field Level)

It is contended that the job requirement of each of these posts being vastly different from one another, though they may carry identical scale of pay, but each is a separate and isolated post by itself in the cadre concerned. All the posts cannot be added together for purposes of applying the principles of reservation amongst various social sectors such as Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, etcetera. Sri C.V. Mohan Reddy, learned Senior Counsel would submit that, when these posts are isolated posts, they form into a single post cadre and consequently, the question of applicability of principles of reservation would not arise. Any attempt to apply the principles of social reservation amongst various social sectors would amount to reserving 100%, which is impermissible. The learned Senior Counsel would therefore submit that the notification issued by the Corporation on 01.11.2007 inviting applications exclusively from members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes treating the vacancies that have arisen in these isolated cadres as backlog vacancies to be filled in by candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes, as the case may be, is completely illegal. He, therefore, challenges the very process of recr