Government can grant exemptions to qualification requirements under special rules, provided such exemptions are within the exercise of power and do not violate constitutional rights.

1 The petitioner is a Senior Inspector in the Cooperative Department of the Kerala State. He is a graduate and has passed the obligatory departmental tests. He says that he was entitled to be promoted as Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies. Consequent on the reorganisation of States, respondents 3 to 34 were allotted to Kerala State from Madras. In Madras State there were three categories of officers in the Executive Staff of the Madras Cooperative Subordinate Service, namely, Sub-Registrars, Senior Inspectors and Junior Inspectors. On 1.8.1958, the Cooperative Department of the Kerala State was reorganised. The Sub-Registrars allotted from Madras State were equated with the senior Inspectors grade I of the erstwhile Travancore - Cochin State. Senior Inspectors from Madras State were integrated with the Cooperative Inspectors Grade II of the erstwhile Travancore - Cochin State. The Junior Inspectors from Madras were placed one block below the newly integrated junior inspectors. That two integrated categories were designated as Senior Inspectors viz., those consisting of sub- Registrars of Madras and the Inspectors Grade No. 1 of the Travancore - Cochin State; and Junior Inspectors consisting of Senior Inspectors from Madras and Inspectors Grade.2 of the Travancore - Cochin area. Under the Madras rule a senior Inspector has to pass certain tests for promotion to the cadre of Sub Registrar and in T. C. State the second grade Inspectors were required to pass certain tests for earning increment. The integration was finally effected and the consent of the Central Government obtained by the letter dated 8-2-1962. Pending finalisation of the integration, the Registrar of Cooperative Societies by his proceedings dated 3.2.1959 promoted 60 Junior Inspectors as Senior Inspectors. On 1.4.1960, the Registrar again promoted 19 Junior Inspectors to the grade of Senior Inspectors Some doubt arose whether for promotion of the Senior Inspectors allotted from Madras who were redesignated as Junior Inspectors, to the cadre of Senior Inspectors in Kerala State, the departmental tests should be passed. Government clarified the position by their order dated 27.2.1962 saying that all the newly designated Junior Inspectors must pass the Account Test (Lower) for promotion as Senior Inspectors. The question subsequently arose whether the the promotions granted by the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to the Junior Inspectors were regular and valid. Government passed Ext. P-1 order on 24.7.1963 stating that the passing of the test was obligatory and that promotions made by the Registrar were irregular; Government therefore directed the reversion of all those persons who were promoted by the Registrar, except four persons who had by that time been promoted as Assistant Registrars and who at the time of promotions to Assistant Registrars' posts had passed the obligatory test. To quash Ext. P-1 order certain persons who have been promoted as Senior Inspectors filed writ petitions in this Court. One of those petitions was O. P. No. 1497 of 1963. The petitions were disposed of by a common order and this court dismissed the writ petitions with the observation that respondents 19, 15, 17 and 6, who were the petitioners in O. P. No. 1497 of 1963, need not be reverted as they had also been promoted as Assistant Registrars and had passed the test before their promotions as Assistant Registrars. There was a writ appeal from this order. That appeal was dismissed in view of the statement at the Bar that Government was reconsidering the matter. It was after this the Government passed the impugned order, Ext. P-2, stating that since the promotions were made in 1962, and these persons were working in the posts of Senior Inspectors for a period of three years and in view of the fact that the promotions when made were not expressly mentioned to be provisional, the Junior Inspectors promoted as Senior Inspectors need not be reverted provided they pass the Accoun