Dama Seshadri Naidu, J.

Introduction:

Two sets of persons, with diverse qualifications, enter service as Secondary School Assistants, at different times. They are placed in different categories of seniority, not based on their date of joining, but based on their qualification. With time, the teachers who are placed in lower category rise through the rungs, after acquiring additional qualifications. Thus, most may get paced in one common higher category, sooner or later. But those who scale up and reach that particular category later may have actually joined the service earlier.

2. The Questions:

2(a). Here, the question is, once persons from different sources enter a common category, how should their seniority be reckoned?

2(b). Is it from the date of their entering and continuously officiating in the service or from the date of their acquiring qualification to reach that common category?

2(c). Is there any universal principle for this proposition or does it depend on the rules of service?

Facts:

WP No.14242 of 2018:

3. In W.P.(C) No.14242 of 2018, there are 13 petitioners; they all work as assistant teachers in the fifth Respondent school. All the petitioners, in fact, entered th