JUDGMENT :

SHARAD KUMAR SHARMA, J.

1. Widely, the issue, which is under consideration in these bunch of Writ Petitions, relates to the issue of fixation of liability of the respective petitioners or their successors (in some of the Writ Petitions), who are the retired employees, for the purposes of remittance of the amount of gratuity, leave encashment, benefits of the ACPs, arrears of the pay and other retiral benefits, and as to in what manner, the same has to be bifurcated, settled and be made liable to be paid by the respective Cooperative Federations of the two States, i.e. Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation Limited and that of the U.P. Cooperative Federation Ltd and what specific laid down criterion is to be followed.

2. On an overall analysis, the basic controversy for consideration would be, that in an undivided State of U.P. all the petitioners of the present bunch of Writ Petitions, were admittedly initially appointed and they had been working with the U.P. State Cooperative Federation Limited, which later on, on account of the settlement arrived at on the basis of Memorandum of Understanding, between the two Cooperative Federations of the State of U.P. and Uttarakhand, the employees working therein with the U.P. Cooperative Federation Limited, later on, on their option, or even otherwise too, their services were admittedly transferred and merged with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation Limited.

3. As a consequence thereto, when these particular petitioners, after the merger of their service with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation Limited, had attained their respective age of superannuation, its then that the controversy arose, as to in what manner, the retiral benefits which were legally payable, under the different heads, as detailed above, would be bifurcated to be imposed upon, as a liability, on the two Cooperative Federations of State of U.P. and Uttarakhand, for the reason being, that in most of the cases, the petitioners, whose services have been later merged, they had partly rather major part of their services have, served with the U.P. Cooperative Federation Limited, and thereafter, for a certain limited and specified tenure of services, as a consequence of their merger of services, they have worked with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation Limited and later on, they have attained their respective age of superannuation from the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation.

4. The issue would have had to be dealt with from different perspectives and particularly, one of the most major provisions, which will be having a bearing on the issue is as to what would be the consequential effect of the merger of services of the employees who were working with the U.P. Cooperative Federation, when their services have been merged with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation and its consequential effect, what impact would Section 54 of the U.P. Reorganization Act, would have over the service conditions of the merged employees, whose services have been thus merged with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation; because as per the wider principles which had been laid down under Section 54 of the U.P. Reorganization Act, in fact, it had rather postulated that as a consequence of the merger of services of the employees from the U.P. Cooperative Federation Limited with the Uttarakhand Cooperative Federation Limited and for that matter also in relation to any other employees of the State or other Cooperation, it had laid down, that as a consequence of the merger of their services, as a resu