Hon’ble Ashok Srivastava, J.—These three writ petitions are connected with each other and, therefore, they have been heard together and are being decided by this common judgment.

2. The factual position emerging from the pleadings of the parties is more or less undisputed, so we would like to give only a summary of it before we proceed to consider the issues involved in these writ petitions.

Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 29117 of 2007

3. The petitioners and proforma respondents of Civil Misc. Writ Petition No. 29117 of 2007 have put up their case by saying that prior to 1989 there were no separate Rules for recruitment of Stenographers and the Rules in this regard were introduced for the first time in 1989. In Kanpur region of the Income Tax Department, acute shortage of Stenographers was felt during the period 1977-78. The appointments for the post of Stenographers (Ordinary Grade) were to be made by the Staff Selection Commission (hereinafter referred to as ‘Commission’), New Delhi. A demand was sent to the Commission to sponsor certain number of Stenographers to the Income Tax Department, Kanpur. The Commission could not provide any selected candidate and by its letter d