JUDGMENT

Pattanaik, J.-In this batch of appeals, the judgment of the Division Bench of Gauhati High Court is under challenge. In Civil Appeal No. 278 of 1999, the appellants had been appointed as Assistant Teachers of Primary Schools in the year 1990. But those appointments were cancelled by the State Government, after giving show cause notice to the appellants inasmuch as the appointments had been made, though no posts were available and the appointments had been made, not in accordance with the prescribed procedure. The order of cancellation had been assailed in the High Court by filing writ petition and the learned Single Judge by a cryptic order, without focusing attention to the relevant criteria, allowed the same. The State had assailed the legality of the order of the learned Single Judge by filing writ appeal and the Division Bench having allowed the writ appeal and this Court against the said order having granted special leave, the present appeal is before us.

2. Civil Appeal Nos. 296/99, 279-285/99 and 286/99 are by some of the teachers in the primary schools, who were appointed on 29.9.94 and their services stood terminated by the order dated 20th December, 1994. They filed writ petitions in the Gauhati High Court, which was pending before the learned Single Judge. When the Division Bench was in session on writ appeal filed by the State, as stated earlier, the said Division Bench withdrew the writ petitions filed by the appellants from the Single Judge and disposed them of, by the common order which is being assailed in these appeals.

3. Civil Appeal Nos. 279-285/99 are also by some of the teachers, who were appointed and whose services stood terminated and they had assailed the order of termination by filing a writ petition before the learned Single Judge, which was brought over by the Division Bench and disposed of, along with the batch of other appeals.

4. Civil Appeal No. 287/99: In this appeal, the teachers before any order of termination, apprehending termination had approached the High Court and while the matter was pending before the learned Single Judge, the writ petition stood transferred to the Division Bench and the Division Bench also disposed of the same by the common order.

5. Civil Appeal Nos. 288-294/99; The facts in these appeals are similar to the facts in Civil Appeal No. 278/99 and in these appeals also, the order of the Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court is under Challenge.

6. Civil Appeal No. 295/99: In this appeal against the order of termination, the teachers had approached the High Court by filing a writ petition and the learned Single Judge by his judgment dated 28th of April, 1994 in Civil Rule No. 4280/91, dismissed the same. Against the said judgment of the learned Single Judge, the teachers had carried appeal to the Division Bench and the Division Bench by judgment dated 24th May, 1995, having dismissed the appeal, the appellants are before this Court, special leave having been granted.

7. In all these appeals, the appellants claimed to have been appointed as Assistant Teachers of different Primary Schools in the State of Assam. The recruitment to the post of Primary Schools is governed by a set of rules called the Assam Elementary Education (Provincialisation) Rules, 1977 (for short the Recruitment Rules ) which had been framed by the Governor of Assam in exercise of powers conferred by Section 27 of the Assam Elementary Education (Provincialisation) Act, 1974. The aforesaid Recruitment Rules provide for method of recruitment, payment of liabilities of the Board and management of Elementary Schools. Rule 3 of the Recruitment Rules provides the method of recruitment. The said Rule 3 is extracted hereunder in extenso:

"Rule 3. (i) Method of recruitment. In the month of January every year the D.I. shall invite applications in prescribed form for vacancies of elementary school teachers which are likely to occur in the year in his establishment.

(ii) Age. (a) A candidate shall be within th