JUDGMENT

Dr. B.R. SARANGI, J.- The petitioners, who are working as Senior Assistants under the opposite party-Sambalpur University, have filed this application seeking to quash the office order dated 29.07.2008 in Annexure-6, by which the inter se seniority which has been fixed by the authority at serial nos.124, 125 and 123 has been changed to serial nos. 148, 149 and 147 respectively on consideration of the grievance made by opposite parties no.3 to 26 in compliance of the order dated 07.01.2008 passed by this Court in OJC No.3246 of 1997, and consequential order dated 07.08.2008 in Annexure-7 restoring the seniority of opposite parties no.3 to 26 over and above the present petitioners.

2. The factual matrix of the case, in hand, is that Sambalpur University is a statutory body in which the petitioners were initially appointed as class-IV employee in the year 1981. Thereafter, by following due process of selection, they were appointed as Jr. Assistant vide order dated 26.11.1984, though the initial appointment was for a period of three months or till the posts are filled up by regular appointment, whichever was earlier. But such temporary appointment of the petitioners was exten