The main legal point established in the judgment is that the petitioners were entitled to protection of their services in accordance with the Constitution Bench Judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in State of Maharashtra vs Milind and Others; 2001 (1) Mh. L. J. 1, and various related judgments.

1. Rule in all the petitions. Rule returnable forthwith. Heard learned counsel for the parties. Since, common question of law arises in all these petitions, they are being disposed of by common judgment.

2. All the petitioners, in the present writ petitions (hereinafter referred to as .the petitioners. for the sake of brevity) claim common relief for protection of their services in view of the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in State of Maharashtra vs Milind and Others; 2001 (1) Mh. L. J. 1 (hereinafter referred to as .Milind's Case. for the sake of brevity) as they were appointed prior to 28.11.2000, on which date the judgment was delivered by the Hon'ble Apex Court. The petitioners claimed to be belonging to Halba- Scheduled Tribe which is listed at Sr.No.19 in the Presidential Order 1950 and obtained caste certificate from the competent Authority showing them to be belonging to Halba-Scheduled Tribe. The petitioners, on the basis of caste certificates, secured employment with the respondents. The Caste Certificates of the petitioners, thereafter, in due course were sent for scrutiny by the respondents to the Scheduled Tribe Caste Scrutiny Committee and the Caste Scrutiny Committee invalidated/cancelled the caste certificates granted by the competent Authority in favour of the petitioners. The petitioners, apprehending termination of their services, challenged the order of the Caste Scrutiny Committee by filing the present petitions. In Writ Petition No. 3980/2006, 2183/2006 and 2239/2006, this Court passed interim orders in petitioners' favour. The services of the petitioners; except services of petitioner in Writ Petition No.6637/2005, are not terminated.

3. The petitioners have restricted their prayer to the protection of their services only. They have also given undertaking that they or their progeny will not claim any benefit as are available to the members of Scheduled Tribe in case their services are protected.

4. Mr. Narnaware, learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that petitioners were appointed much prior to 28.11.2000 on which date the landmark judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court in Milind's case was delivered. Hence, the services of the petitioners are liable to be protected in view of the observations in para 36 of Milind's case and catenna of judgments delivered by the Hon'ble Apex Court. In order to substantiate his contention, the learned counsel for the petitioner also relied upon a number of judgments. Some of the relevant judgments amongst them are as under:-

(i) State of Maharashtra vs Milind and Others; 2001 (1) Mh. L. J. 1

(ii) State of Maharashtra and Others vs Om Raj and Others; Civil Appeal No. 3102/1988 and 17 Ors.

(iii) Sanjay Madhusudan Punekar vs State of Maharashtra and Others, 2002 (2) Mh. L. J. 300.

(iv) R. Vishwanatha Pillai vs State of Kerala and Ors. (2004) 2 Supreme Court Cases 105.

(v) Deputy General Manager, Syndicate Bank vs Dada and Ors. in S. L. P. (Civil) No.9980/2004, decided on 21.02.2005.

(vi) Bank of India vs Avinash D. Mandivikar ; 2005 (4) Mh. L. J. 409.

(vii) Central Warehouse Corporation vs Jagdishkumar V. Panjankar and another; S. L. P. (Civil) No. 25644/2004, dated 16.01.2007

(viii) Punjab National Bank and another vs Vilas Govindrao Bokade and another; 2007 (3) Mh. L. J. 805

5. Per contra, Mr. Sambre, learned Government Pleader for the State, relied upon the provisions of Section 10 of the the Maharashtra Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, De-notified Tribes (Vimukta Jatis), Nomadic Tribes, Other Backward Classes and Special Backward Category (Regulation of Issuance and Verification of) Caste Certificate Act-2000 (hereinafter referred to as .the Act. for the sake of brevity), which has come into force on 18.10.2001. He submitted that Section 10 of the Act provides that on cancellation of caste certificate by the Committee, the petitioners are liable to be discharged from the said employment forthwith and the benefit enjoyed by them or deriv