AJAY KUMAR TRIPATHI, J.

1. Heard Counsel for the parties.

2. The bunch of appeals arise out of a common order passed by the learned Single Judge on 07.07.2017. Since common questions of law arose from identical facts, they all got clubbed and heard together.

3. Prayer made before the writ Court on behalf of the Appellants was to consider their cases for appointment on the post of Assistant Professors and Lecturers in different disciplines in Government Engineering Colleges and Government Polytechnic Colleges, respectively.

4. An advertisement No. 3/15 dated 09.07.2015 was published on 15.07.2015 by the Chhattisgarh Public Service Commission. The advertisement laid down the basic qualification in relation to the posts of Assistant Professors and Lecturers of the respective disciplines. Based on the response, the exercise for recruitment was carried out and we are now told that all the appointments have been made, though some vacancies still remain.

5. The Appellants who were Petitioners before the writ Court argued that the various educational qualification which they possess are equivalent to what was advertised in the advertisement and therefore, they had due eligibility for consideration for appointment. However, taking a hyper-technical, if not an erroneous view that they did not strictly fulfill the requirement of the educational kind, which was made known in the advertisement, they were debarred from participation at the stage of interview. This became the reason for the litigation.

6. The issue for consideration before the learned Single Judge therefore was whether these Appellants could be said to possess the rightful qualification in the disciplines for which they were aspirant in terms of the advertisement or whether equivalence could be used for the purposes of giving them the benefit of doubt of having fulfilled the eligibility of minimum educational qualification.

7. In the impugned order, the learned Single Judge has prepared a chart of all the candidates, who were Petitioners before the Court, the posts on which they had applied, the educational qualification in terms of the advertisement which was needed and then, the qualifications which the Appellants had. It goes without saying that the variation in the requirement as per the advertisement and the degrees or diplomas which most of these Appellants had, by itself indicates the difference. However, during the pendency of the adjudication of the writ applications, a development took place. A notification dated 02.02.2017 came to be published in the Official Gazette where an amendment was brought about in the two Service Rules relating to the Engineering Colleges as well as the Polytechnic Colleges of the State of Chhattisgarh. This notification or the amendments now incorporates or includes the various degrees or diplomas possessed by the Appellants.

8. Therefore, it was urged before the writ Court that the State Government realized its folly and that was the reason why they brought about the amendment and incorporated the degrees which most of these Appellants have. It is their stand that even if for the sake of argument, these Appellants were held to be ineligible at the threshold, there was no ambiguity left now since the State Government itself gave recognition to the degrees of the Appellants by way of an amendment, brought about in exercise of power under Article 309 of the Constitution of India.

9. The stand of the Respondents before the learned Single Judge, which is also the stand before us, is that the recruitment exercise has to be carried out and completed strictly in conformity with the advertisement. All eligibilities and requirements must be in place before the cut-off date and any subsequent development altering that situation cannot accrue to the advantage of otherwise ineligible candidates. Ineligible here means not having the requisite qualification in the respective stream.

10. The learned Single Judge besides taking note of the fact that sim