# • v. STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS - **Citation:** [1977] 1 S.C.R. 1037 - **Court:** Supreme Court of India - **Decided:** 1977 - **Source:** https://unisonlegal.in/judgment/supreme-court-of-india/v-state-of-gujarat-ors-6888 - **Pages:** 23 ## Headnote \ 1037 N. K. CHAUHAN & ORS . A • v. STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS. November I, 1976 [P. N. BHAGWATI,.V. R. KRISHNA IYER ANDS. MURTAZA FAZAL ALI, JJ.] B Constitution of India-Articles 14-16-Civil Service-Seniority-Direct Recruits and Promotees-Quota-Whether roster implicit-Benefit of ServiceWor~~& Phrases-"As far as ptacticab/e". The appellants are the promotee Deputy Collectors in the State of Gujarat. The conlf'sting respondents are the direct r ~cruits to the parent cadre of Deputy Collectors. 7 Deputy Collectors who are the contesting respondents in this C appeal and who were directly recruited as Deputy Collectors in and after 1963 claimed that they were senior to the appellants who were the promotees promoted as Ueputy Collectors between the years 1960 and 1963 by tiling a Writ Petition in the High Court. The routine source of recruitment to the posts of Deputy Collectors used to be Mamlatdars who were promoted as Deputy Collectors. In 1939, direct recruitment policy was also evolved for this post. By an order of 1941 the mode of determining seniority bdween direct recruits and promotees was settled. As far as the direct recruits were concerned, their seniority was to run from the date of their appointment on probation and in the D case of promotees such service was to begin with promotion in substantive vacancy if continued without break. During the year 1950 to 1959 the direct recruitment was discontinued. By the Bombay Government Re"olutinn dated 30-7-1959, the mode of direct recruitment was again started and the proportion in which the recruitment from the two sources, namely, the direct recruits and the promotees, was fixed as 50 : 50 as far as practicable. On 1-5-1960, the Bombay State was bifurcated into Gujarat and MahaE rashtra. On 1-5-1960, a circular was issued by the Gujarat Government adopting the rules, resolutions, notifications etc. of the Bombay State. By a further clarificatory resolution dated 27-5-1960 Gujorat Government provided that nothing contained in the circular dated 1-5-1960 shall apply to appointments of officers, authorities or persons which may be made by the Government on or after 1-S-1960. During the year 1959-62, no direct recruitment was made but many promotions were effected. The Writ Petition filed by the direct recruits was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of the High Court. The Divi,ion Bench of the High Court, however, accepted the appeal of the contesting F respondents. In an appeal by Special Leave the appellants contended : 1. The expression 'as fai;. as practicable' in the resolution of 1959 prov.ides a sensible safety valve. Therefore,, t~e rule is neither except10n-proof ngr abstractly absolute but reahsttc and flexibly true to life. 2. The mandate of equality in Articles 14 and 16 does not require pushG ing down the promotees in the seniority list in the fact of their actual service and legal appointment. 3. Rotation is not implicit in quota. Quota without rotation is also ren,onnble and constitutional at< mu~h as ouota with ro•a•ion. The choice, both being permissible and fair, is left to the Administration. 4. The contesting respondents contended (i) The ru1e of Jaw is the enemy of ·arbitrary absolutism and the discretion to dis0bey is a doctrine of despotism and cannot be subscribed to by a Court. H A B c D E F G H 1038 (ii) SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1977] 1 S.C.R. 'As far as practicable' does not pennit the State to deviate from it. It merely authorises. provisional variations or adlboc solutions or emergency arrangements to meet the difficulty of the Administration without making formal or regular appointments to the posts in question. (iii) Rotational system is implicit in quota. (iv) Any deviation from rotational system is violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Allowing the appeal held : 1. The State in tune with the mandate of the quota rule must make serious effort• to secure hands to fill half the number of Vai:tncies from the open market. If it does not succ ## Text _Characters 0–39,844 of 69,852. This is a partial read: ask again with offset=39844 for what follows._ \ 1037 N. K. CHAUHAN & ORS . A • v. STATE OF GUJARAT & ORS. November I, 1976 [P. N. BHAGWATI,.V. R. KRISHNA IYER ANDS. MURTAZA FAZAL ALI, JJ.] B Constitution of India-Articles 14-16-Civil Service-Seniority-Direct Recruits and Promotees-Quota-Whether roster implicit-Benefit of ServiceWor~~& Phrases-"As far as ptacticab/e". The appellants are the promotee Deputy Collectors in the State of Gujarat. The conlf'sting respondents are the direct r ~cruits to the parent cadre of Deputy Collectors. 7 Deputy Collectors who are the contesting respondents in this C appeal and who were directly recruited as Deputy Collectors in and after 1963 claimed that they were senior to the appellants who were the promotees promoted as Ueputy Collectors between the years 1960 and 1963 by tiling a Writ Petition in the High Court. The routine source of recruitment to the posts of Deputy Collectors used to be Mamlatdars who were promoted as Deputy Collectors. In 1939, direct recruitment policy was also evolved for this post. By an order of 1941 the mode of determining seniority bdween direct recruits and promotees was settled. As far as the direct recruits were concerned, their seniority was to run from the date of their appointment on probation and in the D case of promotees such service was to begin with promotion in substantive vacancy if continued without break. During the year 1950 to 1959 the direct recruitment was discontinued. By the Bombay Government Re"olutinn dated 30-7-1959, the mode of direct recruitment was again started and the proportion in which the recruitment from the two sources, namely, the direct recruits and the promotees, was fixed as 50 : 50 as far as practicable. On 1-5-1960, the Bombay State was bifurcated into Gujarat and MahaE rashtra. On 1-5-1960, a circular was issued by the Gujarat Government adopting the rules, resolutions, notifications etc. of the Bombay State. By a further clarificatory resolution dated 27-5-1960 Gujorat Government provided that nothing contained in the circular dated 1-5-1960 shall apply to appointments of officers, authorities or persons which may be made by the Government on or after 1-S-1960. During the year 1959-62, no direct recruitment was made but many promotions were effected. The Writ Petition filed by the direct recruits was dismissed by a learned Single Judge of the High Court. The Divi,ion Bench of the High Court, however, accepted the appeal of the contesting F respondents. In an appeal by Special Leave the appellants contended : 1. The expression 'as fai;. as practicable' in the resolution of 1959 prov.ides a sensible safety valve. Therefore,, t~e rule is neither except10n-proof ngr abstractly absolute but reahsttc and flexibly true to life. 2. The mandate of equality in Articles 14 and 16 does not require pushG ing down the promotees in the seniority list in the fact of their actual service and legal appointment. 3. Rotation is not implicit in quota. Quota without rotation is also ren,onnble and constitutional at< mu~h as ouota with ro•a•ion. The choice, both being permissible and fair, is left to the Administration. 4. The contesting respondents contended (i) The ru1e of Jaw is the enemy of ·arbitrary absolutism and the discretion to dis0bey is a doctrine of despotism and cannot be subscribed to by a Court. H A B c D E F G H 1038 (ii) SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1977] 1 S.C.R. 'As far as practicable' does not pennit the State to deviate from it. It merely authorises. provisional variations or adlboc solutions or emergency arrangements to meet the difficulty of the Administration without making formal or regular appointments to the posts in question. (iii) Rotational system is implicit in quota. (iv) Any deviation from rotational system is violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Allowing the appeal held : 1. The State in tune with the mandate of the quota rule must make serious effort• to secure hands to fill half the number of Vai:tncies from the open market. If it does not succeed despite honest and serious effort, it qualifies for departure from the rule. If it has become non-feasible, impracticable to get the requisite quota af direct recruits having done all that it could, it was free to fill the post by promotion of suitable hands, if the filling up of the vacancies was administratively necessary and could not wait. The sen-e of the rule is that as far as possible the quota system must be kept up and if not practicable promotees in place of direct recruits or direct recruits in place of promotees may be inducted applying the regular procedures without suffering the seats to lie indefinitely vacant. [1050 F-H, 1051 Al 2. The Government sent a requisition for 12 posts of Deputy Collectors to the Gujarat Public Service Commission as early as in October, 1960. On account of commission having raised various queries including requirements of adequate knowledge of Marathi and Gujarati, the examination could not be held during the years 1960-1962. The explanation given by the Government is prima facio good and not rebutted as got up. Since the Government took active steps in the direction of direct recruitment, the exception to the Government Resolution comes into operation. The Government in the present caso did all that it conld. [1051 A-Fl 3. Quota is not inter-locked with Rota. [1052 Al (a) The quota system does not necessitate the adoption of the rotational rule in practical application. Many ways of working out 'quota' prescription can be devised of which rota is certainly one. (b) While laying down a quota when filling up vacancies in a cadre from more than one source, it is open to Government. subject to tests under Art. 16, to choose 'a year' or other period of the vacancy by v~acancy basis to work ont the quota among the sources. But once the Court is satisfied, examining for const;tntionality the method proposed, that there is no invalidity, administrative technology may have free play ine choosing one or other of the familiar p~ocesses of implefl!enting the quota rule. We, as Jud!!es, cannot stnke down the particular scheme b&cause it is unpalatable to forensic taste. (c) Seniority, normally, is measured bv length of continuou<. officiating service-the actual is easily accepted as the legal. This doe~ not preclude a different prescription, constitutionality tests being satisfied. (d) (e) Promotees regularly appointed during period 1960-62 in exces• of their quota, for want of direct recruits can claim their whole length of service for seniority. . Promotees appointed in 1963 and onwards in excess of their quota should be pushed down and absorbed in vacancies in their quota during subsequent years. [1057 E-H, 1058 A-CJ ! ' I ( ;. , / I ' N. K. CHAUHAN v. GUJARAT (Krishna Iyer, J.) 1039 Mervyn Coufindo & Ors. v. Colleclor of Cus1oms, Bombay [19671. 3. s.c;.R. A distinguished~ Badami v. S11ue of Mysore & Ors. [1976] 1 S.C.R. 815 dtstmgu1shed, Govind Dattaray Kelkar and Ors. v. Chief Controller of Imports and Exports & Ors. [1967] 2 S.C.R. 29 distinguished and doubted. S. G. Jaisinghani v. Union of India [1967] 2 S.C.R. 703 distinguished. Bishan Sarup Gupta v. Union of India [1975] Supp. S.C.R. 491, Union of India v. Bishan Sarup Gupta [1975] 1 S.C.R. 104 and A. !{. Subbraman & Ors. v. Union of India [1975] 2 S.C.R. followed. The Court directed the Government to draw up expeditiously a fresh seniority list in the light of the observations made in the Judgment. [105& HJ 01'iter : (Lengthy legal process, where administrative immediacy is the desideratum is a remedy worse than the malady. The fact that the present case has taken around 5 working days for oral arguments is a sad commentary on the legal syfiem. To streamline and to modernise Court management is a _cinderella subject in India, as elsewhere. We too have miles to go for law ancl 1ust1ce to meet). CNIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION : Civil Appeal No. 463/76. (Appeal by Special Leave from the Judgment and Order dated 11/12-11-1975 of the Gujarat High Court in L. P. A No. 113/74). D. V. Patel, P. H. Parekh and Miss Manju Jetley for the Appellants. M. C. Bhandare, S. P. Nayar and M. N. Shroff, for the State of Gujarat. · R. K, Garg and S. C. Agarwala, for Respondents Nos. 5-6 and 8-11. M. N. Shroff, for the State of Maharashtra. The Judgment of the Court was delivered by KRISHNA hER, J.-This is a typical 'service' appeal, by special leave, which prompts the topical question : Is it wiser national policy to process disputes regarding seruority, promotion, termination and allied matters affecting the public services, through the docket-bound, formalised, methodology of the judicature adopting its traditional, time-consuming, tier-upon-tier system and handicapped by absence of administrative expertise, accessibility to critical information and other limitations on the mode and extent of relief, or, alternatively, through built-in, high-powered, but credibility-wise less commanding, agencies of composite skills• and processes and flexible remedial jurisdictions ? 'Justice and Reform' is a recurrent interrogation. · Our civil services, if only the static and stratified system were transformed and the men properly oriented and activated, may well prove equal to the dynamic challenges of our times but for the pathetic phenomenon of numbers of officials being locked in long forensic battles. This litigative pathology of the members of the public services deplorably diverts the undivided energies, sensitive understanding and oeople-based disposition demanded of them for the fulfilment of the Nation's Tryst with Destiny through implementation of massive B c D E F G H 1040 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1977] 1 S.C.R. A and multiform developmental plans. Hopefully, constructive thinking on impregnable, competent and quick-actmg (but not tlerobed or devalued) mtra-structures and procedures for improving and accelerating the system of justice to the public services is currently under way. B c D E F G H Now to the merits. The briefs are big and the arguments long, but the factual matnx and the legal contl1cts lend themselves to be condensed without detriment. The competition between two categories ot members borne on the cadre of Deputy Collectors of the State of Gujarat viz .. direct recruits and in-service promotees, on the_ilisue of seruority inter-se, with its futuristic career overtones, is the crunch question in this civil appeal. The grey area of 'service jurisprudence' covered before us encompasses several decisions and if 'b~ good disputing shall the law be well known', there has been so much disputation of learned length at the bar that the legal points should have been more pellucid than the precedents read and re-read made us feel. 'The aid of the purifying ordeal of skilled argument' when too lapidary and finical reaches a point of RO return, despite Megarry J to the contrary in Cordell v. Second Clanfield Properties Ltd.('). Seven Deputy Collectors, arriving by direct recruitment in, and after 1963, claim to be ahead, in the gradation list, of their more numerous counterparts, former mam!atdars, whose promotional incarnation as Deputy Collectors, dates back to the years 1960-63. The title of these younger incumbents to be elder in the Civil List is primarily founded on a basic Resolution of Government of July 30, 1959 regulating recruitment to the Deputy Collectors' cadre by the then Bombay State adopting a quota basis. The Gujarat State, carved out of Bombay and formed on May 1, 1960, continued the system; and so, simplistically presented, the fate of the 'seniority' struggle critically turns on the construction the Bombay Resolution of 1959 bears, the rival versions having been alternately frowned upon or favoured at the original and appellate docks of the High Court. There are other matters of moment debated at the bar and we will pass on some of them at later stages. In administrative and legal terms, this case is the projection of the common rivalry for promotional positions between fresh, young recruits and old, seasoned promotees, between alleged excellence of talented youth and tastoo explilrience of mellowed age. Sympathies may sway either way and reasons often spring from sympathies. • To be captiously wise in retrospect may itself border on vice. Even so, we are constrained to observe that when government orders, as here, have the flavour of law and impact upon the fundamental rigl1ts and equal opportunities of citizens, they have to be drafted with the case that legal orders deserves lest avoidable litigation should thrive for no better reason than that administrative orders or subsidiary legislation have been drawn up with a casualness that betrays the skills of insoucience. Law must be precise, simple, clear, comprehensive and (1) (1968] 3 All E.R. Ch. Dn. 746. ·' i I ~ N. K. CHAUHAN v. GUJARAT (Krishna Iyer, l.) 1041 there is a duty on the law-maker at every level not to injure the com-· A munity b:ftengled webs of rules, orders and notifications whose meaning is revealed only through transcendental meditation . or constant litigation. In a socialistic pattern of society there is hardly any part of national life or personal life which is not affected by some legal rule or other. When men have to look to the law from the cradle to the grave, making of even subsidiary laws demands gr,eateilt attention. To begin with the legal beginning is best done with the Bombay Government Resolution of 1959 after giving a thumbnail sketch of the relevant service structure and other minimal particulars . •• The composite Bombay State, for purposes of Revenue Administratio~ had been divided into Divisions which were separate units for promotional prospects, liability to transfer etc., of deputy collectors. The routine source of recruitment to these posts used to be mamlatdars who were transferred as deputy collectors by promotion. As early as 1939, a different recruitment policy had been evolved for picking suitable hands from the open market by direct nomination. The inevitable concomitant of a plurality of recruitment categories is the evolution of a workable rule of inter se seniority. So, by an order of 1941, the mode of determining seniority between 'nominees' and 'promotees' was settled. Service, for seniority purposes, so far as direct recruits were concerned, was to run from the date of their appointment on probation and, in the case of promotee officers, such service was to begin with promotion in substantive vacancies, if continued without break. For reasons obscure, the direct recruitment scheme of infusion of fresh blood-to use the usual validating vascular metaphor-to invigorate the Administration, hibernated from 1950 until 1959. However, the crucial government decision of July 30, 1959 not merely re-activated the mode of direct recruitment but fixed the promotion in which recruitment from the two sources was to be made, referred to conveniently as the quota system. The heart of the debate before us is whether a quota prescription, willy nilly, does postulate ex-necessitate a rota process in practice. We may here read the resolution itself : Deputy Collector : Recruitment of probationers • 60VERNMENT OF BOMBAY • REVENUE DEPARTMENT Resolution No. RTC. 1157 /99153-D Sachivalaya, Bombay, 30th July 1959 Read-Government Resolution No. 9313/45, dated the 6th February 1950. Government Resolution No. 9313/45, dated the 24th July 1951. . B c D E F G H 1042 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1977] 1 S.C.R. A RESOLUTION : Government had for sometime under consideration the qtestion of reviving the system of direct recruitment to the cadre of Deputy Collectors. It has now been decided that in the interest of administration the revival of that system is quite necessary. Government is accordingly pleased to cancel the orders contained in Government ReB solution No. 9313/45, dated 6th February 1950 and those in Government Resolution No. 9313/45, dated the 24th July 1951, in so far as they relate to the recruitment of Bombay Civil Service Executive Branch Deputy Collectors (Upper Division) and to direct that, as far as practicable, 50 per cent of the substantive vacancies occurrin~ jn the cadre with effect from 1st January 1959 should be filled in by nomination of candidates to be selected in accordance with the Rules C appended herewith. • x x x x x By order and in the name of the Governor of Bombay, G. L. Sheth Secretary to Government" D We may also extract the portion from the annexed rules of recruitment pertinent to our purpose : "Appointment to the posts of Deputy Collector shall be made either by nomination or by promotion of suitable Mamlatdars : Provided that the ratio of appointment by nomination E and by promotion shall, as far as practicable, be 50 : 50." The raw materials government proceedings needed for our discussion will be complete if the 1941 Resolution also were .read at this stage: "GOVERNMENT OF BOMBAY Political & Services Department Resolution No. 3283/34 F Bombay ~astle, 21st November, 1941. G H x x x RESOLUTION : Government is pleased to direct that the following principles should be observed in determining the seniority of direct recruits and promoted Officers in the provincial services (except the Bombay services of Engineers, Class 11) (i) · In the case of direct recruits appointed substantively on probation, the seniority should be determined with reference to the date of theii; appointment on probation. (ii) In the case of officers promoted to substantive vacancies, the seniority should be determined with reference to the ( 1) Date of their promotion to the (2) substantive vacancies (3) provided there has t i -1 ,• N. K. CHAUHAN v. GUJARAT (Krishna Iyer, J.) 1043 been no break in service prior to their confirmation A • in those vacancies. · By order and in the name of the Governor of Bombay G.f.S. Collins, Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Boplbay Political and Services Department" Flowing out of the fixation of the ratio between the two species of recruits and having a bearing on the issue of seniority is another Resolution of the Bombay Government (continued during the relevant pe~~ in Gujarat also by virtue of an omnibus circular of May 1, 1960) of February 3, 1960. This step became primarily necessary on account of the Reorganisation of States and the abolition of Divisions.• The legal fiction of 'deemed dates of commencement of service' for the purpose of inter se seniority of personnel drawn from different pre-Reorganisation States and from the Divisions within the State on conversion of the deputy collectors' cadre into a State-wide one has been crystallised in this rule of February 1960. One more clarificatory proceeding of Government, dated May 27, 1960 has loomed large in Shri Patel's submissions, especially the Explanation portion thereof and, in a sense, it lends some push to the problematic conclusion. We therefore read the relevant Government Circular right here : No. GSF-1060-F Government of Gujarat General Administration Department Sachivalaya, Ahmedabad, 27th May 1960 CIRCULAR Read: Government Circular No. GSF-1060, dated the 1st May 1960. Doubts have arisen as respects the directions given under Government Circular No. GSF-1060 dated the 1st B c D E May, 1960. . . . . To remove any doubt in that behalf, F therefore, Government is pleased to direct that the following Explanation shall be and shall be deemed always to have· been added to the said circular, nanielyExplanation :-]'\othing herein shall apply to appointments of officers, authorities or persons or to the constitution of tribunals ~r other bodies which may be made by GovernG ment on or after the 1st May, 1960 and the conditions of service of the officers, authorities or persons appointed or the members of the Tribunals or bodies so constituted. By order and in the name of the Governor of Gujarat. Sd/- V. Isvaran Chief Secretary to the Government." H Reliance has been placed on the Explanation quoted above to emancipate Government from compliance with the Bombay rules A B c D E F G H 1044 SUPREME COURT REPORTS [1977] 1 S.C.R. regarding appointments of officers or their conditions of service, an aspect we will expand, if needed. Prima facie, while we ~gree that the new State is not bound by administrative directions of the parent State and may free itself from it by appropriate steps, an unguided power is suspect and a carte blanche in doing what Government fancies with any of its servants is· subversive of ordered societies. We have no further probe to make into this Resolution in the present case and leave it at that. The fact of the matter is that during 1959-62, no direct recruitments were made but many promotions were effected. Afterwards, i.e., in 1963 and later, direct recruits were appointed who, contrar3.to their legal aspiration, were not assigned seniority over earlier promotees of 1960-63 vintage, having regard to Lhe factual position. The further hope that for post-1963 recruits, dates of appointrnent,e and running of service with effect therefrom, on the basis of a quota allocation and rota system telescoped into it, proved a plain dupe in the seniority list prepared by government. The doubly chagrined direct recruits moved the High Court for relief, as stated earlier. The anatomy, in outline, of the deputy collector's cadre in the Gujarat Government and the grievances of the writ-petitioners (respondents before us) thus emerge. On a 50 : 50 basis the vacancies in the cadre are filled from two sources viz., direct recruitment and promotion from among mamlatdars. Once appointed, their seniority gains saliency and turns on length of service, and though no specific provision to count commencement of service is made in the 1959 Resolution, it has been understood as set out in the 1941 Resolution earlier mentioned. The contesting respondents plead for pushing down prornotees, based on the strict roster system of 1 : 1 going by each vacancy and demur to taking the year as a unit for adjustment of ratio. Which view should prevail? Force, there may be, in the rival versions, individual injustice there can be whichever view were accepted and precedential pushes and pressures may also be brought into play by either side if we surrender to scriptural literality of decisions of this Court and miss the thrust of the ratio therein. In a finer sense, and within the frame of reference of leading precedents, each case has an individuality and is a law unto itself. Strictly speaking, the priinary problem is one of fair interpretation of the basic government Resolution of 1959, illumined by the purposes and motivations of good government and unravelling the implications embedded therein, against the background of the administrative structure, service pattern and seniority prin~iples, prevalent contemporaneously, as gleaned from the records of the case. The . milieu aids the meaning although lawyer's law leans heavily, even lop-sidedly, on judicialized lexicography. Counsel naturaUy took us through rulings bearing on the meanings of words and canons of construction which merely re-stated time-honoured principles and dictionary culls and did not make us any the wiser in corning nearer to a resolution of the conflict here. Likewise, arguments galore on the connotation of the quota system of recruitment, with abstractions, propositions and illustrations based on decided cases, were addressed to us, although we 'came out by the same door as in we went' ! Common1 ' • / , . N. K. CHAUHAN v. GUJARAT (Krishna Iyer, J.) 1045 sense is the first aid in the art of interpretation. The only sure apA proach thi!t judges make when confronted by complexity in construction and necessity for rationalisation is on the lines justice Cardozo frankly stated : (1) "We may figure the task of the judge, if we please, as the task of a translator, the reading of signs and symbols given from without. None the less, we will not set man to such a task, unless they have absorbed the spirit, and have filled themselves with a love, of the language they must read." Two groups, the promotees who came from the lesser stations of life an~the direct recruits who have had better advantages of higher education, fight for berths in the musical chair. In such situations, w'.1ile consti;.uing rules, sub-conscious forces have to be excluded and ob1ectificat10n must be attempted. Even so, the beautiful candour of Benjamin Cardozo whispers to us that we judges "are ... ever and always listening to the still small voice of the herd, and are ever ready to defend and justify its instructions and warnings, and accept them as the nature results of our own reasoning. This was written, not of judges specially, but of men and women of all classes. The training of the judge, if coupled with what is styled t~e judicial temperament, will help in some degree to emancipate hinl from the suggestive power of individual dislikes and prepossessions." ( 2) Our effort in unlocking the meaning of the controversial Government Resolution of July 1959 and of other official notifications may inarticulately, minimally and unwittingly, be moulded by these broad under-currents. Other facts relevant for discussion of specific points urged and other legal issues germane to the grounds of attack and defense formulated by counsel may be filled in as and when those points are taken up by us, instead of inartistically cluttering up or en massee lugging together many government proceedings, sequences of events and clarification of difficulties following on the division of Bombay into Gujarat and Maharashtra, even at this preliminary stage. The pivotal questions---()ne an interpretative exercise and the other a facet of the fundamental right of equal opportunity-around which revolve the other arguments may first be set out: (1) If the Gujarat Government ha1>, by an administrative guideline or statutory rule directed that open market recruits and in-service promotees will be appointed 011' a 50 : 50 basis with the qualification that this principle shall be adhered to, as far as practicable, is Government free to ignore such a rule of conduc't as if it were no inflexible directive, violation of which spells illegality on the appointments made, or does this clause obligate the State fiarly to try and comply, but if surprise circumstances or insurmountable exigencies arise which make recourse to the rule impracticable, deviate from it without the risk of courts branding such deviant appointments void? In short, how far can (1) Benjamin N. Cardozo: The Nature of the Judicial Process: Yale University Press, P. 174. (2) Cardozo (supra) pp, 175-176. B c E F G H A B c D E F G H 1046 SUPREME COURT REPORTS (1977] 1 S.C.R. administrative pragmatics influence, without invalidation, the recruitment mechanics where a narrow rider providing for imJ1bnderable exigencies written into the rule, provides for departure? (2) Assuming there has to be a proportion of 50-50 as above indicated, how is it to be worked out ? On a rotational basis of the direct recruits inexorably getting the first, the third, the fifth and such like vacancies or as an entitlement to half the total number of vacancies arising in the cadre in a particular year or other conventional period ? Again, does it further imply an imperative obligation on the part of Government to keep unfilled all vacancies allocable to direct recruits so that ,they may be available to be filled up in later years with retroactive reperc~ sions and, if such ear-marked posts are, for administrative exigenc!es, filled regularly, not ad hoc, in substantive vacancies, not ex cadre posts by selection and promotion, they must be treated as prov~onal notionally filled by direct recruits who may arrive long later? And consequentially, in counting seniority, reckon their (i.e., direct recruits) deemed dates of entry as prior to those actually officiating promotee deputy collectors by importing a sort of legal fiction that the direct recruits must be allowed to count service from the date when the entitled vacancy for direct recruits arose? May be a diffusive, digressive discussion can be obviated and the focus turned on specific issues if we start with a formulation of the major points urged by Sri D. V. Patel, counsel for the appellant, hotly controverted, of course, by Shri R. K. Garg for the contesting respondents. Elimination of the minor clears the ring for the major bouts. The appellants represent the group of promotee deputy collectors and the contestants are deputy collectors directly recruited. The Gujarat State lines up with the former, more or less. We now set out sequentially the six-point propositional formulation made by Shri Patel, for the appellants, although salience suggests the third item as first-and, if we anticipate our conclusion, the last in importance. The cornerstone of the case, as noted earlier, is the Bombay Government's Resolution of 1959 fixing the proportion between direct recruits and promoted candidateis, with an emergency escape route to jump out of the fixed ratio. Shri Patel's first point is that once the new State of Gujarat was formed, mere administration proceedings of the former government of Bombay State ceased to be in force proprio vigore unless Gujarat adopted or continued or ptherwise modified them. subject to statutory regulations anq constitutional limitations_. Th.e State of Gujarat had plenary executive power, granteCrimination or unreasonableness. · ( 6) The· assignment of "deemed dates' of --- cnmmencement of service is not unreason a hie but i< often adopted by Governments when intel'fllting into a common cadre officers drawn. from different States or Departments or divisions. Nnvel comoulsion·s deman.ient the promotees cannot be dislodged from their notche; in the ladder. ' We are mercifully absolved from.making the discu«ional. journey over. a long mileage covenng the. poly-oointed formulation: since two · essenthl isrnes .m•v virtuolly be. decisive of the ca