Hon’ble B. Amit Sthalekar, J.—The controversy involved in the above writ petitions is being stated to be identical, therefore, being decided by this common order, leading case being Writ petition No. 44512 of 2017.

2. The petitioners in the writ petition are seeking quashing of the tentative seniority list dated 28.8.2017 as well as the order dated 2.5.2017 whereby their representation against the seniority list has been rejected.

3. Briefly stated the case of the petitioners is that they were recruited as Junior Engineer (Electrical/Mechanical) by direct recruitment through a selection conducted by the Electricity Service Commission of the U.P. Power Corporation Ltd. They were given appointment by an order dated 30.12.2000 and the petitioners joined their posts accordingly. By an order dated 5.6.2012 they were also granted promotion from Junior Engineer (Electrical/Mechanical) to the post of Assistant Engineer (Electrical/Mechanical) under the 40% quota as well as 8.33% quota. It is further stated that on 5.5.2012, the respondent Nos. 5 to 12 alongwith several others were appointed through direct recruitment also conducted by the Electricity Service Commission as Assistant Engineer (Trainee). These Assistant Engineers (Trainee) were then sent for on-job training on 12.5.2012 and after successful completion of one year of training they also took a written examination and having qualified the same were appointed as Assistant Engineer (Electrical/Mechanical) vide order dated 17.1.2014.

4. The case of the petitioners is that the substantive appointment of the respondent Nos. 5 to 12, therefore, would be from 17.1.2014, but by issuing the impugned tentative seniority list these direct recruits, total 184 persons including the respondent Nos. 5 to 12 have been placed en masse senior to the petitioners, treating their date of substantive appointment as 5.5.2012. It is also stated that on 15.12.2016 a tentative seniority list of Assistant Engineers was notified showing the names of persons of the recruitment year 2010-11 and this seniority list did not include the names of the petitioners. Against this tentative seniority list two writ petitions, namely, Writ Petition No. 61497 of 2016 (Anoop Kumar Sinha and others v. State of U.P. and others) and Writ Petition No. 15647 of 2017, (Neeraj Kumar and others v. State of U.P. and others) were filed. Writ Petition No. 61497 of 2017 was finally disposed of by the Court vide order dated 23.12.2016 with a direction that the objections which may have been filed by the petitioners therein against the said seniority list of 2010-11 be decided before making promotions to the post of Executive Engineer. It is stated that in pursuance of this direction the impugned order dated 2.5.2017 has been passed rejecting the representations of the petitioners herein. The other Writ Petition No. 15647 of 2017 was, however, dismissed as withdrawn with liberty to the petitioners to challenge the order dated 2.5.2017 which was passed subsequent to the filing of that writ petition.

5. The contention of the petitioners also is that in previous years the respondents have been assigning seniority to Assistant Engineer (Trainee) during the recruitment year 2000-01 from the date of their being appointed as Assistant Engineer with seniority beginning from 2001-02, thereby clearly showing that seniority was granted only after successful completion of training. Similar, practice has been followed with regard to grant of seniority of Assistant Engineer (Trainee) of the recruitment year 2003-04 from the date of their appointment as Assistant Engineer after completion of their training during the recruitment year 2005-06. The allegation, therefore, is that it is only this time in the case of the petitioners that the respondents have deviated from their previous practice and have framed the tentative seniority li