Hon’ble Shri Narayan Shukla, J.—Heard Mr. Pankaj Srivastava, learned counsel for the petitioners, Mr. J.N. Mathur, learned Additional Advocate General alongwith Mr. V.S. Tripati, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel for the State and Mr. Anil Tiwari, learned Senior Advocate as well as Mr. R.K. Chaudhary, learned counsel for the State Warehousing Corporation.

2. The petitioners are the employees of the State Warehousing Corporation, State of U.P. They are deployed at different districts in the whole State. They belong to different categories viz. Technical Assistants, Accountants, Group ‘C’ and Group ‘D’ posts. They have come forward to lodge their claim of regularization through different set of writ petitions by challenging the advertisement issued for regular recruitment as well as the order passed by the State Government, rejecting their claim of regularization.

3. Since common questions are involved for determination in all the writ petitions the description of writ petitions alongwith total number of petitioners in each and every petition and categories of employees are mentioned here-in-below:

Sl. W.P. No. Party name Total Writ Group ‘C’ Group ‘D’

No. petitions employees employees

1 7621 of 2008 Ram Naresh & others 60 15 45

2 8020 of 2008 Mahesh Prasad 19 8 11

Tripathi & others

3 480 of 2009 Manoj Kumar Sirothi 8 8

& others

4 2628 of 2009 Anil Kumar & others 67 7 60

5 486 of 2009 Salman Ahmed & others 43 43

6 483 of 2009 Harish Chandra Joshi 13 13

& others

7 504 of 2009 Mukteshwar Sharma 6 5 1

& others

8 488 of 2009 Vipin Kumar Arora 5 5

& others

9 2627 of 2009 Rajesh Kumar Arora 32 32 (Tech.

& others Asstt.

10 2630 of 2009 Sunil Srivastava 1 1 (Acco-

& others untant)

Total 254 81 173

4. Some of the petitioners have completed their tenure of service more than ten years. Some are reaching that stage. Since several years they have been seeking their regularization before the competent authority, but they did not come forward to lodge their claim to the Court of law, but when the advertisement proceeded for regular recruitment in different categories, they came forward to challenge the same, which is before this Court.

5. The services of the petitioners are regulated by the U.P. State Warehousing Corporation Staff Regulations, which have been framed in exercise of power conferred by Section 42 of the Warehousing Corporation Act, 1962. By way of Section 42 of the Warehousing Corporation Act, 1962 (in short ‘Act’) the Warehousing Corporation has been authorized to make regulations for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the Act, which may provide the conditions of service and remuneration payable to the officers and other employees of the Corporation etc. The regulation 3 speaks that they shall apply to all employees of the corporation and to the personnel employed on contract in respect of all matters not regulated by the contract.

Regulation 2 (e) defines the term ‘Employee’ as under :

“(e) ‘Employee’ means a person in the whole time or part time on daily wages or a person employed on contract in so far as he is governed by the terms of the contract.”

6. Regulation 4 speaks for strength of staff. It provides that the Board of Directors shall, from time to time, determine the strength of the staff both permanent and temporary under various categories required for carrying out its functions: Provided that the Managing Director may subject to the approval of the Executive Committee create any post in class II or class III for a period not exceeding six months.

7. Regulation 5 speaks for appointing authority. It provides that Appointments to posts in class II in the scale of Rs.625-1240 and above shall be made by the Managing Director and appointments to the posts in class II and III below the pay scale of Rs.625-1240 shall be made by the Deputy Managing Director. Appointment to the posts other than that of Managing Director, shall