1. Petitioners and private respondents responded to the Advertisement notice issued by the Jammu & Kashmir Service Selection Board (hereinafter the Board) in 1997-98 inviting applications from eligible candidates for available vacancies of Foresters/Forest Inspector, Divisional cadre Jammu. They participated in the selection process and, on the strength of their merit, found place in the select list published by the Board on May 16th 1998. Petitioners applied under reserve categories, were selected under OBC category (petitioner No.1) and Resident of Backward Area category (petitioners 2 to 7). The private respondents (respondent 4 to 7) appeared in the select list in Open Merit category at Sr. Nos. 21, 27, 30 and 32.

2. The Board on completion of selection process, made recommendation for appointment of selected candidates, to the indenting department. The Government forwarded the list to the concerned agency for verification of antecedents of the selected candidates. As the candidates belonged to different districts of Jammu Division, verification reports were received on different dates. The Government issued appointment order in favour of a selected candidate on receipt of his verification report. This lead to issuance of appointment orders in favour of some of the selected candidates on the dates earlier to the dates such orders were issued in favour of other candidates.

3. Be that as it may, all the selected candidates were appointed and in the tentative seniority list issued vide circular dated 10.2.2009, seniority of the appointees was fixed as per their position in the merit list i.e in order of merit reflected in the select list. This was followed by a final seniority list issued vide FPF order No.816 DFPF of 2009 dated 18.12.2009. In the final seniority list, seniority of the appointees was fixed as per the date of appointment order and the date of their joining pursuant to such orders. The final seniority list obviously made a departure from the "Tentative Seniority List" and was not based on the merit position of the appointees.

4. Shri Aijaz Rasool Wani and ten other appointees questioned the Final Seniority List in SWP No.2006/2009. The writ petition was allowed on 22.12.2010; the final seniority list issued vide No. 816 of 2009 dated 18.12.2009 was quashed and the official respondents directed to maintain the inter se seniority of petitioners and respondents in the petition, in accordance with the Rule 24(b) of J&K Civil Service (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules 1956. The writ court relying on the Division Bench judgment in L.K. Mengi v. State and others LPA No.741/1999 held that the inter se seniority of the direct recruits is to be based on merit position in the select list and not on the date of appointment order or the date an appointee joins the post. The writ court in this regard referred to following observations of the Division Bench:

"The above reproduced proviso makes it clear that in case of candidates directly recruited, their inter-se seniority has reference to the select list and not to the different dates on which they joined the post, spatially when posts are offered to them on different dates. Once the Government operates upon the select list, it has to be done in accordance with the positions the candidates enjoy in that list. An indefeasible right accrues to the candidates ranking higher over those who rank below them."

5. The writ court while referring to Rule 24(b) Jammu and Kashmir Civil Service (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules 1956 observed :

"However, in the present case the issue is not as to whether seniority has to be fixed from the date of first appointment or from the date of qualifying the competitive examination but is an issue where the date of first appointment is determined on the basis of merit obtained in the competitive examination and not from the date of actual appointment. Therefore, the above judgment has no relevance in the present case.

In the case in hand,

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