The period of officiating service of temporary AEEs appointed between 1990-1992 must be counted for seniority, entitling them to be placed above the 1997 batch of regularly appointed candidates.

JUDGMENT :

SANDEEP MEHTA, J.

Civil Appeals @ SLP (Civil) Nos. 4036-4038 of 2024; Civil Appeals @ SLP (Civil) Nos. 4596-4597 of 2024

1. Heard.

2. Leave granted.

3. These appeals take exception to the final judgment and common order dated 21st September, 2023 rendered by the High Court for the State of Telangana at Hyderabad¹ [Hereinafter, being referred to as the ‘High Court’] whereby the Division Bench allowed the batch of writ petitions preferred by the private respondents herein and quashed the Government Office Memorandum² [Hereinafter, being referred to as the ‘G.O.M.’] No. 262, dated 17th June, 2006, issued by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

4. Facts in a nutshell relevant and essential for the disposal of these appeals are as under.

5. The appellants who hold the qualification of B. Tech (Bachelor of Technology) were selected and appointed as Work Inspectors in the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes Cooperative Development Corporation³ [Hereinafter, being referred to as the ‘Corporation’] on 1st January, 1990 and were serving in the said department. The Government of Andhra Pradesh issued G.O.M. No. 89, dated 9th February, 1990, sanctioning posts of Assistant Executive Engineers⁴ [Hereinafter, being referred to as ‘AEEs’] for achieving Phase-II of the Andhra Pradesh Primary School Project⁵ [To achieve the first objective 84 primary school building with improved designs were constructed in 11 selected project districts. In order to achieve phase-II of the project construction work needed to be entrusted to the Panchayat Raj Engineering department and to have a separate class of engineer’s staff for undertaking construction of buildings of primary schools and teachers’ centres] which was initiated in collaboration between the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Government of United Kingdom in the year 1983. The said project was time-bound and hence, directions were issued by the Government of Andhra Pradesh to the Chief Engineer, to fill up the posts immediately from the list available with the Andhra Pradesh Public Service Commission⁶ [Hereinafter, being referred to as ‘APPSC’] and if the list was not adequate then the Chief Engineer was permitted to recruit the candidates through the employment exchange.

6. Since the list available with the APPSC was inadequate to fill the posts required for the project, the Chief Engineer wrote to the State Government, and in response thereof, G.O.M. No. 429, dated 6th March, 1990, was issued by the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Department, Government of Andhra Pradesh, directing that these vacancies may be filled up from the Work Inspector/Draughtsman/Tracers who were already serving in the Panchayat Raj Department and possessed a graduation degree in Engineering i.e. B.E./B.Tech. It was further clarified that the nature of these appointments would be temporary under Rule 10(a)(i) of the Andhra Pradesh Subordinate Service Rules⁷ [Hereinafter, referred to as ‘Service Rules’] pending amendment to the Special Rules for Panchayat Raj Engineering Services. The said G.O.M. also contained a direction to frame a formula for the promotion of the abovementioned candidates, taking into account the strength of cadre and the retirement vacancies in the next two years as per the rules. A Committee was also constituted to consider the proposal for temporary appointments and for filling up the remaining vacancies.

7. Thereafter, another G.O.M. No. 540, dated 30th August, 1990 was issued by the Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Depar