Rajamannar, C.J.

This is an appeal against the judgment of Rajagopalan, J., in Writ Petition No. 255 of 1956 filed under Art. 226 of the Constitution by the appellant before us. The facts which led up to the filing of the writ petition are as follow :-

The appellant is an assistant stationmaster employed in the Southern Railways and after nationalization of the railways, all the railway servants must be deemed to have become civil servants of the Government if India. Up to 1947 almost all the railway employees were working for twelve hours a day without a weekly holiday. In that year an award was passed by the adjudicator which laid down that there should be work only for eight hours and that there should be a weekly day of rest. As a result of this award about 1, 000 new hands in the stationmasters' cadre had to be employed. To meet this immediate demand 316 persons were directly recruited as probationary stationmasters. The appellant was one of them and he was appointed as probationary stationmaster and signaller-trainee on 2 November, 1948. He was to undergo training for six months and to be posted to a working post after passing an examination, the post was to be temp