JUDGMENT :

GS Patel, J.

1. The Petition is specially assigned to this Bench. Rule. There is an Affidavit in Reply. The State Government is represented. Rule returnable forthwith.

2. The eight Petitioners are aggrieved by what they describe as a failure of this Court on its administrative side to apply a set of rule and guidelines equally and uniformly to eligible officers on the Original and Appellate Sides of this Court. We reproduce prayer clauses (a), (a)(i) and (a)(ii):

“(a) This Honourable Court in its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Construction of India may be pleased to issue a writ of Certiorari or any other writ, order or direction in the nature of Certiorari calling for the representations made by the Petitioners (Exhibits F, G, H and I); the guidelines to be followed for grant Selection Grade (Exhibit D hereto); and implemented by granting the Selection Grade to the Officers on the Original Side; as also the entire records and proceedings in respect of one Officer on the Appellate Side and after perusal of the same:

(i) issue a writ of Mandamus or any other writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus directing Respondent No.1 to extend the benefit of Selection Grade to Petitioners No.1, as per the guidelines approved and made applicable to the officers on the Original Side as per Exhibit “D”;

(ii) issue a writ of Mandamus or any other writ, order or direction in the nature of Mandamus directing Respondent No.1 to frame guidelines to be followed to grant and extend the benefit of Assured Career Progression-II (ACP-II) to Petitioner Nos. 2 to 8 and extend the said benefits to them.”

3. Mr Gadagkar for the Petitioners has filed detailed written submissions. These are taken on record.

4. Mr Gadagkar first submits that the prayers in the Petition are perhaps not as felicitously worded as they ought to have been. He points out from his written submissions that the case is squarely one of invidious discrimination, arbitrariness in classification without a rational, or even discernible, nexus to the object of the applicable rules and guidelines — in other words, a case that falls under Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The complaint is about continuing a disparity or imbalance in pay scales that are, by law, made applicable to officers, both judicial and non-judicial, on both the Original and Appellate sides of this Court. There is no claim to a particular post or to any particular posts; the only contention is about implementing a statutorily mandated equivalence in pay.

5. What prayer clause (a) really seeks is that the guidelines that have been framed at Exhibit “D” as applicable to officers on the Original Side of this Court be made applicable to officers on the Appellate Side of this Court; and that the guidelines be applied forthwith to officers on both sides of the High Court establishment. Prayer clause (a)(i) is specific to the 1st Petitioner because he had a distinct position equivalent to that of an entry-level District Judge. Prayer clause (a)(ii) is again less than felicitously worded. It really seeks the extension of an Assured Career Progression-II (“ACPII”) to officers on both the Appellate Side and Original Side of the High Court.

6. As presented, the Petition is a straightforward Article 14 challenge. It says that certain named officers were conferred benefits but for others similarly situated or placed, identical benefits were not conferred. That conferment has been kept pending for many years. The conferment of benefit on a few officers could not have been done by exercising some unknown ‘discretion’ in favour of select persons without making the same conferment applicable to others in the class. Across the Bar, it is also pointed that some who have succeeded, or been later appointed to, the posts occupied by those who received this ‘special’ benefit have been given the benefit too. In ot