JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Sri Shashank Shekhar Mishra, Sri Siddharth Khare and Sri Jamil Ahamad Azmi learned counsel for the petitioners, Sri Govind Krishna who appears for the Nagar Palika Parishad Azamgarh and Sri Ajit Kumar Singh learned Additional Advocate General assisted by Sri Chandan Kumar learned Standing Counsel for the State respondents.

2. These three petitions which raise a common question have with the consent of parties been taken up for disposal together.

3. All the petitioners essentially seek the addition of services rendered in an ad hoc or temporary capacity for the purposes of computation of pensionary benefits. It may at the outset be stated that these petitions were taken up for disposal together since the Court was faced with similar writ petitions coming up before it daily. It was thus thought expedient that the basic issues which would need to be borne in mind by the respondents while dealing with such claims would warrant articulation. On the aforesaid view being expressed, Sri Ajit Kumar Singh the learned Additional Advocate General, in his usual fairness, suggested that since the petitions are proposed to be disposed of without the State being invited to file formal replies, issues such as the statutory regimen which would govern and the essential factors which would merit consideration may be enunciated leaving it to the respondents to reevaluate the claims as raised by the petitioners here. The sound counsel of the learned Additional Advocate General was duly accepted and it is on those lines and to the aforesaid extent alone that the Court proceeds to frame its present decision.

4. Before proceeding forth, it would be relevant to advert to the individual facts of the three writ petitions which are proposed to be disposed of by means of this common judgment.

A. FACTS OF THE INDIVIDUAL WRIT PETITIONS

1. Sushma Chandel Vs. State of U.P. and others [Writ A NO. 9396 OF 2021]

4. The petitioner here was initially appointed in May 1990 on daily wage basis. That appointment was brought to an end in November 1990. The order of termination was challenged by way of a writ petition in which an interim order was granted providing that the respondents would not interfere with the working of the petitioner as a Medical Officer. Pursuant to that interim order, she is stated to have continued to function as Medical Officer till 27 November 1998 when she was appointed on ad hoc basis. Various other Medical Officers who were continuing on ad hoc terms under the respondents agitated their claims for regularisation before the respondents. In the litigation which ensued, one writ petition preferred by Dr. Smt. Sudha Tripathi came to be disposed of by a Division Bench calling upon the State to consider her claim for regularisation. Pursuant to the directions issued by the Division Bench on that writ petition and the dismissal of the Special Leave Petition of the State, the services of Dr. Smt. Sudha Tripathi came to be confirmed. In the meanwhile, various other Medical Officers like the petitioner who had initially been engaged on ad hoc basis and had continued to serve under the respondents for years together without being regularized, petitioned the Lucknow Bench of this Court aggrieved by the denial of their claims. The lead matter of the batch which came to be instituted was of Dr. Dhirendra Prakash Tiwari v. State of U.P. And Others, Writ-A No. 26637 of 2012. The Division Bench while rendering judgment on that batch firstly took note of the judgment rendered by the Court in Dr. Yogendra Singh And Others v. State of U.P. And Others, Chiraunjilal and 7 others Vs. State of U.P. and others and the directions issued therein for the claim of regularisation being considered in accordance with the policy decision of the State Government which extended the benefit of regularisation to all ad hoc Medical Officers who had been appointed on or before 17 July 1991. The aforesaid decision in Dr. Yogendra Singh was unsuccessfully assailed by