Hon’ble Suneet Kumar, J.—Heard Sri Seemant Singh, learned counsel for the petitioners, learned Advocate General assisted by Sri C.S. Singh, Additional Chief Standing Counsel, Sri U.P. Singh learned Standing Counsel for the State respondents, Sri P.N. Saxena, Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Vinod Kumar, Sri Manish Goel, Sri Anoop Trivedi and Sri Rahul Srivastava, Advocates appearing for the private respondents.

2. The connected writ petitions are based on identical facts and law, therefore, on the consent of the parties, the petitions are being decided together.

3. The facts of petition, being Writ Petition No. 37599 of 2015 (Ashish Kumar Pandey and others v. State of U.P. and others), is being considered to determine the controversy.

4. On a specific query, whether all the affected parties are represented, the Standing Counsel would inform that all selected candidates have been put to notice by the State, selections and appointments have been made subject to the final outcome of the petitions. All affected parties are represented. Sri P.N. Saxena, Senior Advocate, is espousing the cause of the private respondents assisted by a battery of lawyers.

5. The petitioners who are 25 in number, applied pursuant to an advertisement dated 19 May 2011, issued by the Additional Secretary (Recruitment) U.P. Police Recruitment and Promotional Board U.P. (Board) for filling posts of Sub-Inspector in Civil Police (SICP) and Platoon Commanders in Provincial Armed Constabulary (PC(PAC). The petitioners are assailing the final result declared by the Board on 25 June 2015. Further, seeking a direction to the Board to apply horizontal reservations following the principles laid down in the authoritative pronouncements rendered by the Supreme Court, and incorporated by the State, in the Act and Government orders.

6. The oral argument advanced by the Advocate General is backed by written submissions. He would contend by raising a preliminary objection that judicial propriety would demand, that, since a Division Bench of this Court in a petition being Writ-A No. 40695 of 2005 referred the matter to a larger Bench, inter alia, to determine “what should be mechanism for application of horizontal reservation in respect of various categories provided therein namely women, dependents of freedom fighter, physical handicapped etc. in the State of U.P.?”, therefore, the hearing of the present petition be deferred.

7. The reason for reference, as noted by the Court, was necessitated primarily upon noticing that there being a conflict in the ratio laid down by a Division Bench in Rajeev Kumar v. State of U.P. and others, 2010(7) ADJ 608, in so far, it lays down in paragraph 12 of the report that “the reservation has to be spread evenly for the representation of female category candidates to the extent of minimum of 20% in each category” which was a rule applicable in the State of Rajasthan providing reservation for women candidates, whereas, in the State of Uttar Pradesh, having regard to the judgments rendered earlier by other Division Benches and the Government Order applicable for the purpose of horizontal reservation, the matter was referred to a Larger Bench. In the opinion of the Court “the issue of application of horizontal reservation has been engaging the attention of this Court time and again, therefore, having regard to the provision of Act, 1993 and Government Orders issued in the matter of horizontal reservation being provided to various categories of persons, namely, women, dependents of freedom fighter, physical handicapped etc. may be resolved finally, in order to avoid further litigation, by the Larger Bench of this Court.”

8. Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners would submit that, it is not being disputed by the State or the Board that quota for horizontal reservation to be filled by special category candidates, which being 20% for women, 5% for dependents of freedom fighters and 2% for ex-servicemen was calculated and worked