( 1 ) THE petitioners in all the matters are servants of the State working in its Revenue Department and they entered the said service in the position of Clerks. The recruitment to the said post was done under Gujarat non-Secretariat Clerks, Clerk-Typists, and Typists Recruitment Examination rules, 1970. These Rules refer to Pre-service Training and Post-Training examination, ideally speaking, only on successfully getting through the examination, a candidate will be appointed as a Clerk in different Departments of the State. However, gradually, this situation came to develop as to appointment preceding the Training, much less, therefore, a question of post-training examination preceding the appointment.

( 2 ) IN course of time, there happened to be the situation where the posttraining examination may have taken place after some time, may be number of years and if the candidate in question has been allocated to the Revenue department, further on he has to appear at the Revenue Sub-service Departmental examination (hereinafter referred to as SSD Examination) governed by 1971 rules. These Rules came into force with effect from 1/02/1971. The importance of this Rule for the persons working in the lower Division of subordinate Revenue Service is that without passing the same, he cannot appear at the Revenue Qualifying Examination which is a must for being promoted to higher post. This Revenue Qualifying Examination subsequently came to be bifurcated into two, namely, Lower Revenue Qualifying Examination (hereinafter referred to as LRQE) and Higher Revenue Qualifying Examination. In the case before us, we are concerned with this LRQE for which in the year 1978 Rules came to be framed.

( 3 ) IN the said Rules, there is a reference to a person who has already completed 5 years service on the appointed date, but was not permitted to appear at the examination under the Old Rules and was given some chances as per sub-rule 22, the details of which are not material for our purpose. There is reference to seniority in sub-rule 2 of the Rules 6 and 7 read with its proviso.

( 4 ) THE petitioners in all these petitions have disputed the stand taken by the State Government as to the fixation of their seniority. The claim advanced in all the petitions except Special Civil Application No. 101 of 1987 is that their seniority should be fixed from the date of their joining service. The petitioners of petition No. 101 of 1987 have claimed seniority from the date of their passing the Post-Training (Pre-Service) Examination or in the alternative, from the date of joining service as per Rule 21 of the recruitment Examination Rules, 1970. The relevant Rule 21 has been extracted at page 40 of Special Civil Application no. 101 of 1987 which is hereinafter referred to as the main petition.

( 5 ) ON going through the said Rule 21 at page 40 of the main petition, it becomes at once clear that it refers to batch-wise seniority and provides for candidates who appear at the examination on completion of the training prior to their entering into service. Strictly speaking, this will not be of much help in resolving the controversy with reference to LRQE 1978. Otherwise also, in our opinion, the State Government has strictly contended that this being General Rule of Recruitment, it will apply to the candidates, who enter into the Government service for the first time, irrespective of the Department to which they have been allocated. On going through the aforesaid direct recruitment Rules, we find the provision of Centralised Recruitment Scheme, the details of which can be had from Rule 3. The selection is necessarily meant for all the Departments of the State, except for the offices that have been mentioned in Appendix a to the Rule. They are only 12 in number, being Department of Secretariat, GPSC, Vigilance Commission, Legislature secretariat, Judicial Courts and others.

( 6 ) WE, therefore, agree with the submission of learned Counsel Miss Doshit appear