ORDER :

(A.V. Sesha Sai, J.)

1. Third parties to O.A.Nos.12273 of 2010 and batch on the file of the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal are the petitioners in this batch of writ petitions. This Court deems it appropriate to treat W.P.No.11000 of 2013 as a lead case.

2. In W.P.No.11000 of 2013, challenge is to the order dated 24.11.2011, passed by the Tribunal, allowing O.A.No.12273 of 2010. Respondent No.3 in the writ petition, by invoking the provisions of Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 (for short, ‘the Act’) filed O.A.No.12273 of 2010, seeking the following relief:

“Application filed under the section 19 of the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 praying this Tribunal to declare the action of the respondents in not considering the case of the applicant for promotion to the post Deputy Executive Engineer by fixing the seniority in the Cadre of Assistant Engineer by effecting promotion notionally to the said post as per the ratio fixed among the Direct Recruitees and Promotees for promotion to the post of Assistant Engineer prescribed in the Rules by taking into consideration of the Judgment passed by this Hon’ble Tribunal in O.A.Nos.1019 to 1023/1991 dated 02.12.1998 and not finalizing the seniority list in the cadre of Assistant Engineers though Draft Final Seniority List of AEEs was issued by the 1st respondent on 15.01.2009 calling for objections and not finalizing the objections dt.06.02.2009 made by the applicant before effecting promotions to the post of Deputy executive Engineers in Zone-IV as illegal, arbitrary, unjust, discriminatory and contrary to the rules and consequently direct the respondents to consider and dispose of the objections filed by the applicant dt.06.02.2009 before effecting promotions to the post of Deputy Executive Engineers and consider the case of the applicant for promotion to the post of Deputy Executive Engineer as per seniority and as per A.P, R & B Engineering Subordinate Service Rules.”

3. The Tribunal by way of an order dated 24.11.2011, allowed the Original Application, declaring that the applicant be entitled for notional promotion to the post of Assistant Engineer from the date on which 29 work Inspectors Grade–I were promoted to the posts of Assistant Engineers as per the orders of the Government, vide Memo dated 10.12.1991, wherein the State Government accorded permission to fill up the said posts with all consequential benefits and the Tribunal also declared that the applicant would be entitled for further promotion to the post of Deputy Executive Engineer without any monetory benefits. As against the said order, the present W.P.No.11000 of 2013 came to be instituted by third parties with the leave of the Court. A Division Bench of the composite High Court of Andhra Pradesh vide order dated 12.04.2013 in W.P.M.P.No.13614 of 2013, suspended the aforesaid order passed by the Tribunal.

4. Heard Sri N.Vijay, learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Government Pleader for Services for the official respondents and Sri P.Lakshman Raju and K.Satyanarayana Murthy, learned counsel for the unofficial respondents.

5. Contentions of the learned counsel for the petitioners:

1) Orders impugned in the Writ Petition, passed by the Tribunal are highly erroneous, contrary to law and opposed to the basic principles of service jurisprudence.

2) Orders of the Tribunal are contrary to G.O.Ms.No.904 PWD dated 01.08.1973 i.e., A.P.Roads and Buildings Engineering Subordinate Service Rules R/w G.O.Ms.No.30 dated 14.02.1992.

3) The Tribunal failed to see that the notification issued vide G.O.Ms.No.30 dated 14.02.1992, accepting the proposal of Engineer-in-Chief (R & B) parse is required to be treated as amendment to G.O.Ms. No.904 PWD dated 01.08.1973 and that the same created the ratio of 5:3:2 amongst direct recruitees, Draughtsmen and Work Inspectors.

4) Publication of amendment in the gazette is only a Ministerial Act and the Rules prescribing the ratio shall be deemed to have been