JUDGMENT :

J.J. MUNIR, J.

1. Heard Mr. R.P. Pandey, learned Counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Girijesh Tripathi, learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel on behalf of respondent No. 1, Mr. Abhishek Srivastava, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of respondent Nos. 2 and 3 and Mr. Adarsh Bhushan, learned Counsel appearing for respondent No. 4.

2. This writ petition has been filed by thirty contract employees, who were linemen with the Purvanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (for short ‘the Corporation’) and have had their services dispensed with under orders of approval passed by the Managing Director of the Corporation. The petitioners, though thirty in number, the order terminating the contract of service in terms of an approval by the Managing Director, annexed as Annexure No. 10 to the writ petition, sought to be quashed, relates to the first petitioner alone. Similar orders relating to the other petitioners are not annexed.

3. Nevertheless, there is a case urged on behalf of the petitioners that they have been dealt like the first petitioner, Ashish Kumar Pandey with the Managing Director of the Corporation, approving the termination of their contract, with a further direction that