(Gopalan Nambiyar, J. agreeing with him):

1. The order referring this case to a full bench reads thus:

"An important question which frequently arises in service matters and on which it would appear two views are possible here arises. It is whether a person whose seniority in a lower grade has been

wrongly fixed with the result that another who is really his junior is promoted over him to a higher grade (the promotion being on the basis of seniority only) and who has not questioned the promotion can, on the seniority in the lower grade being corrected, claim the promotion which has already gone to his junior.

We refer this case to a full bench."

2. In December 1955, the Travancore-Cochin Public Service Commission "advised" the petitioner, the 4th respondent and the 3rd respondent, in that order, for appointment as lower division clerks in the State Insurance Department of the Travancore-Cochin Government. (The reference is to the parties as they stand arrayed in the writ petition, O. P. No. 2131 of 1966, out of which this appeal arises the 1 st respondent to the petition is the State Insurance Officer; and the second, the State of Kerala). They were accordingly appointed in