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 allowed to them long ago and the benefits, including the monetary benefits, accruing from their promotions now feel much aggrieved by the Government decision and the consequences flowing from that decision. But, the controversy has arisen under unusual circumstances and in a somewhat uncommon way and in one sense the genesis of this controversy may be said to lie in an order passed by this Court in another, pending case (being CWJC No. 5859 of 1996) in which it is the endeavour of this Court to have a realistic budget for the B.R. Ambedkar Bihar University prepared by a one-man committee appointed by the Court.

3. But, before proceeding to examine how and in what manner this controversy has arisen, it is necessary to see what is the exact and the real nature of the controversy.

4. The State Government and the Magadh University are engaged in the preparation of the annual budget for the University as required under Secs. 45 to 54 of the Bihar Universities Act, 1976. The exercise for preparation of the annual budget, which is undertaken after a gap of about a decade and a half, is apparently bringing to the fore certain issues over which the State Government and the University and its teachers seem to hold widely divergent views. One such issue relates to the date from which those lecturers can be said to have entered into service of the University or the college concerned whose services were absorbed under any one of the three statutes for regularisation of services of purely temporary lecturers. According to the State Government, in case of those teachers who at the time of their absorption were not holding the post of temporary lecturer in accordance with law, the date of entry into service cannot be from a date prior to the date specified in the statutes for regularisation of service under which their services were absorbed in the University or the collegeconcerned. And the benefit of the previous service can be allowed only to those who on the date of their absorption were holding the post of temporary lecturer lawfully and validly.

5. In preparation of the budget, the Government, in accordance with its stand, has discounted the previous service of the petitioners and has assigned to them the date specified in the statutes for regularisation of service. As a result the date of the petitioners entry into service is considerably advanced from the date of their initial appointment, which till now was recognised by the University as the date of their entry into service. The advancing of the date of entry into service assumes greater importance when it leads to the question of promotion of the petitioners as Readers and Professors under the bime-bound promotion statutes. The dates of promotion also get proportionately advanced.

6. For illustration, let us