( 1 ) THESE petitions are broadly divisible into two main groups one consisting of 84 petitions relating to the official year 1967-68 and the other consisting of 96 petitions relating to the official year 1968-69. Though the two groups relate to different official years the facts giving rise to the petitions are substantially similar and so also the points of law arising in them and we therefore propose to dispose them of by a common judgment. We may point out that so far as the petitions in each group are concerned they also follow an identical pattern and therefore instead of taking each petition separately we decided to take Special Civil Application No. 662 of 1968 as representative of the first group and Special Civil Application No. 82 of 1969 as representative of the second group. The main affidavits were filed in these two petitions and it was agreed between the parties that the affidavits in these two petitions may be treated as affidavits in all the other petitions. Complaints were made before us that new facts were sought to be. introduced by both parties in the affidavits filed by them subsequent to the filing of the affidavit-in-reply but we pointed o