Aftab Alam, J.

1. These writ petitions arise from a common controversy and the twenty-nine petitioners in all the six petitions who are holding the teaching posts of Reader and Professor in different colleges under the Magadh University seek similar reliefs. All these cases were, therefore, heard together and are being disposed by this judgment.

2. The issue at the core of the controversy in all these writ petitioners is whether the lecturers whose service were absorbed in the University or the college concerned under the three statutes for regularisation of services of purely temporary lecturers are entitled to take into account the period of their service rendered before absorption (for the sake of convenience hereinafter referred to as the previous service) for the purpose of computing the period of qualifying service for promotion to the posts of Reader and Professor under the merit promotion or the bime-bound promotion statutes, even though the previous service might not be in accordance with law. It is indeed true that this controversy is raised, at the instance of the State, after a long time. And as a result the petitioners who had become used to the promotions allo