The court ruled that only approved service counts for seniority, while unapproved appointments do not confer such rights, emphasizing timely challenges to adverse orders.

1. These writ petitions are filed by the respective petitioners who are teachers of a Vocational Higher Secondary School (Victory VHSS, Olathanni, Neyyattinkara P.O.). WP (C) Nos. 31102/2010 and 21571/2011 are filed by Smt. J. Alphonsa and Smt. O. N. Judy and WP (C) No. 32508/2011 is filed by the first petitioner in these two writ petitions, viz. Smt. J. Alphonsa. WP (C) No. 37103/2010 is filed by Smt. R. Ajithakumari who is a common respondent in all the other writ petitions and WP (C) No. 236/2012 is filed by Smt. C. Swarnamma and Smt. S. Sheeba.

2. The dispute between these parties and other contesting respondents in the writ petitions, is one of seniority. Essentially, the question is whether, on reduction of the post consequent on staff fixation, who among them are entitled to be retained in terms of the seniority.

3. The six teachers who have been appointed as UPSA, are having approved continuous service from 01/06/1998. Going by the seniority assigned, they are arrayed in the following order: (i) Smt. S. Sheeba, (ii) Shri. G. Biju, (iii) Smt. R. Ajithakumari, (iv) Smt. J. Alphonsa, (v) Smt. Seline P. Rini; and (vi) Smt. O. N. Judy. Serial Nos.4 and 6 are respectively the petitioners in WP (C) Nos. 31102/2010 and 21571/2011. Serial No. 1, Smt. S. Sheeba is the second petitioner in WP (C) No. 236/2012 and serial No. (iv) is the petitioner in WP (C) No. 32508/2011. Serial No. 2, Shri. G. Biju has been arrayed as a respondent in all these writ petitions. Serial No. (iii) is the petitioner in WP (C) No. 37103/2010. The seniority has been assigned, on the basis of age.

4. For tracing out the history with regard to the appointments and the genesis of the dispute, I shall refer to the facts pleaded in WP (C) No. 37103/2010.

5. Even though the petitioner was appointed in the years 1996 and 1998 in two leave vacancies as per Exts. P1 and P2 appointment orders, those appointments have not been approved. When six regular vacancies of UPSAs arose in the year 1998-1999, the petitioner was also appointed along with five others, as already noticed. Ext. P3 is the order of appointment as far as the petitioner is concerned and the approval is granted from 01/06/1998. The seniority among these six are fixed based on their date of birth and accordingly she was placed as serial No. 3. By Ext. P4, she was promoted as HSA (Maths) on 15/06/2000 against an additional division vacancy and the said appointment has also been approved. Due to division fall in the year 2008-2009, she was reverted from the post of HSA to the post of UPSA with effect from 15/07/2008 and in that year only five UPSA posts were sanctioned and thus the sixth among them, who is the juniormost, was retrenched with effect from 15/07/2008.

6. All the controversies herein were triggered when the juniormost Smt. O. N. Judy (6th respondent) was thus retrenched. As far as the said teacher is concerned, she was initially appointed from 10/01/1996 to 29/03/1996 in a maternity leave vacancy of Smt. T. Geethakumari, UPSA. The said appointment was not approved and a revision petition was filed which was rejected as per Ext. P6 order dated 18/11/1999. It was never challenged in a further revision before the Government by her or by the Manager. On coming to know that she will be reverted from 15/07/2008 she filed a revision petition dated 12/05/2008, Ext. P7 before the Government challenging Ext. P6 order. The time gap is more than 8 years.

7. It appears that the Government called for the remarks of respondents 2 and 3. Exts. P8 to P10 are the true co