The court held that the conditions imposed by the respondent bank were illegal and arbitrary, and were contrary to the directions issued by the court in earlier orders. The court also held that the requirement for an online written test was discriminatory against the petitioners, who were not well-versed with computers, and that the outer age limit of 28 years was arbitrary and unreasonable.

ORDER :

1. In all these petitions, the petitioners are questioning the conditions imposed under A.P Grameena Vikas Bank Regularization Scheme of Casual/Daily Wage workers as Office Attendants (Multipurpose) in Group-C, 2023 vide Circular No.APGVB/Per&HRD/75/2022-23 dated 13.02.2023 viz., Regulation 2 (2), 3 and 7 (i) insisting for a written online test, prescribing outer age limit of 28 years at the time of initial engagement and applying the scheme only to the Casual/Daily Wage workers who have worked for ten years or more service as on 31.12.2017 instead of 13.02.2023 is illegal, arbitrary, unconstitutional and violative of Article 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India. In view of the same, all these petitions were heard together and being disposed of by way of common order.

2. Head Sri Prathap Narayan Sanghi, Learned Senior Counsel and Smt. P.K.Kalyani, Counsel appearing for the petitioners and Sri V.R.Avula, Learned Senior Counsel appearing for the respondent-Bank.

3. The learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that all the writ petitioners are employees of the respondent No.3-Bank and most of them are continuously in service for the past more than 10-15 years and at least completed 10 years of service and they were appointed in the clear vacancies in terms of Rules and as their services were not regularized and some of the employees were constrained to file W.P.No.15294 of 2014 and batch seeking regularization of their services and the said writ petitions were disposed of by this Court directing the respondents to evolve a scheme for regularization of services of the petitioners and others subject to assessment of their suitability and their eligibility as to age and educational qualifications has to be assessed as directed by this Court in the order dated 27.12.2017 in W.P.No.24779 of 2011. Against the said orders, the respondent-Bank filed W.A.No.147 of 2021 and batch, and the same were dismissed by the Division Bench of this Court on 25.04.2022 and the respondent-Bank filed SLP No. of 2022 and the same was also dismissed on 12.08.2022.

4. The learned Counsel for the petitioners submits that the respondent No.1 with an intension to uplift the Rural Areas of the Country in the Banking Sector enacted Regional Rural Bank Act, 1976 and constituted 56 Rural Grameena Banks in the Country. The Government of India vide Notification dated 28.09.1988 framed service rules of its employees which governs the condition of service of its employees in the Rural Grameena bank. The Rule-5 (2) deals with the condition of services, mode of recruitment. All the writ petitioners were appointed pursuant to interviews conducted by the respondent Bank and all of them were holding requisite qualification and have rendered more than 10 years of service with respondent No.3-bank and they are being paid the consolidated pay. The service regulations were modified from time to time. The said Rules were subsequently amended vide notification dated 13.07.2010 and 29.03.2017. The petitioners are concerned with the service Rules of 1988 and 2010 as they were appointed under the said Rules and the Rules, 2017 are not applicable to them since the same is only prospective in nature. All the Regulations prior to 2017, the mode of recruitment was only interviews. In the year, 2017 written test was prescribed which is not applicable to the petitioners.

5. The learned Counsel for the petitioners further submits that in the case of Chaitanya Godavari Grameena Bank, similarly situated candidates to the petitioners approached this Court and filed W.P NO.24779 of 2011 and this Court directed the respondents therein to formulate a scheme while implementing the Judgment of the Hon’ble Supreme Court. The respondent No.1 having considered and regularized the services of the employees of Chatianya Godavari Grameena Bank by formulating the scheme and the said procedure was required to be followed in the case of the petitioners.

6. The learned Counsel for the petitione