ORDER :

(Sangeeta Chandra, J.)

1. Heard Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Siddhartha Khare, learned counsel for the petitioners, and Sri Ajit Kumar Singh, Additional Advocate General assisted by Sri Sudhanshu Srivastava for the respondent no. 1 and 2, and Sri O. P. Singh, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Sujit Kumar Rai for the respondent no. 5 and 6, and Sri Navin Sinha, learned Senior Advocate again assisted by Sri Sujit Kumar Rai for the respondent nos. 3 & 4.

2. All of the above petitions are connected and are being taken up together as they involve identical issues. There are a total of 378 petitioners before this Court. All of them have challenged Circular dated 17.09.2021 issued by the Commissioner and Registrar Cooperatives U.P. Lucknow and also the communication of the Deputy General Manager (Administration) of U.P. State Nirman Sahkari Sangh Limited Lucknow (hereinafter referred to as “Sangh”) and the notice dated 22.02.2022 issued by the Superintendent Engineer, and have prayed for a Mandamus to be issued to the respondents not to interfere in the working of the petitioners as Sahyogis/Clerks/Junior Engineers /Assistant Engineers, and to pay them their regular monthly emoluments and not to cause any break in the continuity of the service of the petitioners, and to continue the petitioners till the requirement of work continues to exist. A further prayer has been made to restrain the respondents from replacing the petitioners by Contract employees engaged through service providers.

3. We will take the facts of the leading case of Kamal Uddin and Others Vs. State of U.P. and Others, as they cover almost all the grounds and other Writ Petitions are also of similar nature. In the Writ Petition it has been submitted that U. P. Rajya Nirman Sahakari Sangh/ U.P. State Construction Cooperative Sangh Ltd Lucknow, is an Apex Level Cooperative Society registered under the provisions of the U.P. Cooperative Societies Act, 1965. Its service conditions of employees are governed by U.P. Cooperative Institutional Service Board which has framed a set of Regulations known as U.P. Cooperative Societies Employees Service Regulations, 1975.

4. In paragraph 6 of the Writ Petition it is claimed that the Sangh is an instrumentality of the State and is under its total administrative and financial control. The majority of the funding of the Sangh is borne by the State Government. The recruitment and other conditions of the service of employees are governed by Statutory Regulations framed under Section 122 of the 1965 Act. (This has been specifically denied in the counter affidavit of the Sangh).

5. It has further been submitted that all the Writ Petitioners are working either as Sahyogis/Class IV employees or as Clerks or as Junior Engineers or Assistant Engineers for a long time on basis of contracts signed annually. Some of the petitioners have been working since 1999 while others have been engaged in 2010, but most of them have been working for the past 10 to 20 years on the basis of such contractual arrangement where contracts are entered into on different dates in the month of April each year and extend upto 31st March of the next year. Some copies of contracts entered into initially by each category of such petitioners have been filed as exemplars. It has further been stated that initially a Class IV employee was engaged in the year 2002 on a consolidated payment of Rs.2000/-which has increased from time to time and now is Rs.11,500/-. Similarly a Clerk was initially engaged on a consolidated fee of Rs.3,000/-and the monthly pay has now increased to Rs.13,000/-. A Junior Engineer was engaged in 2010 on monthly pay of Rs.9,375/-which has now increased to Rs.15,063/-. An Assistant Engineer was engaged in the year 2009 on monthly pay of Rs.10,000/-which has now increased to Rs.23,500/-. Details of all the petitioners allegedly continuously working, from the time of their initial engagement, though on the basis