1. - These two writ petitions are filed by the employees of the Rajasthan State Ganganagar Sugar Mill Ltd. The writ petition no.273/97 has been filed by 25 petitioners inter alia with the prayer that the respondent be directed to count their entire service from the date of their initial appointment for grant of selection scale pursuant to the order of respondent dated 7/23.11.1992 with all consequential benefits and that the condition imposed by the respondent in their order dated 21/22.10.1992 for qualifying departmental typing test within two years be declared bad in law and be quashed and set aside.

2. Petitioners in this writ petition were appointed during the year 1983 as Salesmen in various liquor shops run by Rajasthan State Ganganagar Sugar Mill Ltd. in tribal areas.

3. The writ petition no.274/1997 has been filed by seven petitioners who too like them were appointed as Salesmen during the year 1993 inter alia with the prayer that the respondents be directed to consider their case for regularisation. However, during the pendency of the writ petition, some of the petitioners were regularised in service and therefore, the writ petition was sought to be amended with the prayer that the respondent be directed to consider their entire period of service rendered by them for the purpose of grant of selection grade and the condition of qualifying departmental test within two years be declared illegal.

4. Shri Rajendra Prasad Sharma, learned counsel for the petitioners has argued that even though initially the appointment of the petitioners was made on daily wage basis and subsequently on payment of consolidated salary, but they have been continuously serving the respondent in the shops run by the respondent. It is contended that as per Rule 8 of the Rajasthan State Ganganagar Sugar Mills Service Rules, the period of probation of two years can be taken to have begun from the date of their initial appointment in terms of second proviso thereto, which inter alia provides that any temporary service rendered by employee before his placement on probation in a post may be counted towards the probationary period. It is contended that the argument of the respondent that their appointment was not made against any sanctioned encader post, cannot be accepted, because subsequently the respondents themselves placed the petitioners on probation, which clearly show that the posts were available with them and, therefore, the petitioners were appointed and placed on probation. The additional requirement of passing the departmental type test within two years was absolutely unreasonable and illegal. Learned counsel argued that action of the respondent in not regularising the petitioners in service was discriminatory because the respondent-management had entered into a settlement with union of employees of their factory and agreed to regularise such unskilled workmen, who has rendered one and a half years satisfactory service. The same criteria should have been applied to the case of the petitioners also. The action of the respondent is thus wholly discriminatory and violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

5. Shri Virendra Lodha, learned counsel for the respondent opposed the writ petition and submitted that petitioners in both the writ petitions, except petitioners Devi Lal and Mohan Lal in writ petition no.274/1997, have been regularised in service. They were initially appointed on temporary basis and not by way of any regular and acceptable mode of recruitment. Learned counsel in this connection referred to the initial appointment order dated 10.12.81, which is placed on record at Annexure-1 in writ petition no.273/1997. It is contended that appointment of the petitioners was not made against any encadered or sanctioned post. They were only engaged on payment of daily wages and subsequently on consolidated salary, but since they had continued for quite some time, the respondent by an act of benevolence decided to grant