1. 1. Although the facts mentioned in the four writ petitions regarding the merits of the claims made by the petitioners are not similar but a common preliminary objection has been raised by the Respondents about the maintainability of the Writ Petition in all the four cases. The objection of the Respondents is that the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan Society do not fall within the scope of the term "State" as used under Article 12 of the Constitution of India and, therefore, writ petitions filed by the petitioners for enforcement of their fundamental rights guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution are not maintainable. Since this preliminary objection is common to all these writ petitions, the same is being disposed of by a common order.

2. Briefly stated the facts of Writ Petition No. 2778/91 are that the petitioner who is a member of S.T., applied for appointment as L.D.C. at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya District Tonk, in pursuance of advertisement issued by the Principal of the School on 15.7.90 (Annexure-1). The petitioner was called for selection along with other eligible persons. His assertion is that he has been selected by the Selection C