IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) THURSDAY, THE THIRTIETH DAY OF APRIL, TWO THOUSAND NINE PRESENT: THE HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.24943 of 2008 Between: Smt. G. Narayanamma & others. ..... Petitioners AND A.P. Residential Educational Institutions Society (Regd), rep., by its Secretary, Hyderabad & others. .....Respondents Counsel for the petitioners : Sri M. Surender Rao Counsel for respondents 4&5: Sri A. Venkataramana for Sri D.V. Sitharam Murthy Counsel for respondents 13&14: Sri A. Rama Rao Counsel for respondent No.15: Smt. Bobba Vijayalakshmi This Court made the following: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE C.V.NAGARJUNA REDDY WRIT PETITION No.24943 of 2008 ORDER:- At the interlocutory stage, the writ petition is taken up for hearing and disposal with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties. This writ petition is filed for various reliefs. However, the purport of these reliefs is that the respondents should not tinker with the dates of regularization of the petitioners as Junior Lecturers in the residential junior colleges in which they have been respectively working in the guise of finalizing the inter se seniority among the Junior Lecturers. In the view I am proposing to take, it is not necessary to record the facts in detail. It will suffice to note that the petitioners, who were working as Post Graduate Teachers (PGTs) in different schools under the management of respondent No.1, were converted as Junior Lecturers acting on the options given by them. According to the petitioners, their services as Junior Lecturers were regularized by proceedings issued on 07.11.1990 and 18.04.1991 with effect from 1989 or 1991 as the case may be. On 18.10.2004, objections were called for by the Secretary of respondent No.1 to the provisional seniority list prepared by him. According to the petitioners, they have submitted their objections. However, evidently, no final decision was taken thereafter and by proceedings dated 29.09.2008, a fresh provisional seniority list was prepared and objections were called for. Questioning the said provisional seniority list, the petitioners filed the present writ petition. This Court, by order dated 14.11.2008, granted interim stay and the said order is continuing till now. The vacate stay petitioner, who got himself impleaded as respondent No.15, filed the said application for vacating the interim order. At the hearing, Sri M. Surender Rao, learned counsel for the petitioners strenuously contended that while respondent No.1 is entitled to finalize the inter se seniority among the Junior Lecturers, he has no right to take away the substantive right of the petitioners pertaining to the dates on which their services were regularized. He referred to the annexure to the impugned memo and illustratively submitted that while the services of S.P. Jeelani, petitioner No.5, were regularized with effect from 07.10.1988, the said date is proposed to be altered to 20.08.1998. He therefore submitted that the very provisional seniority list being defective and it interferes with the substantive right of the petitioners, the same is liable to be quashed. Smt. Bobba Vijayalakshmi, learned counsel for the impleaded respondent (respondent No.15) submitted that the writ petition is premature, because respondent No.1 has not finalized the inter se seniority and therefore the petitioners are entitled to raise their objections before respondent No.1. There is no dispute regarding the nature of the impugned proceedings. While objections were called for in the year 2004, in the absence of any counter-affidavit filed by respondent No.1, the reasons for not finalizing the seniority list in the year 2004 are not forthcoming. Be that as it may, by the impugned memo respondent No.1 proposed to finalize the inter se seniority by calling for objections to the purported provisional seniority list. As rightly pointed out by the learned counsel for the petitioners that if the petitioners’ services were regularized with effect from a particular date, unless the said date is altered by a substantive proceedings, respondent No.1 is not entitled to adopt a different date for finalizing the inter se seniority. But, I refrain from expressing final opinion at this stage because admittedly respondent No.1 is yet to finalize the inter se seniority and the proceedings impugned in the writ petition are in the nature of provisional seniority. Therefore, as rightly pointed by Smt. Bobba Vijayalakshmi, the writ petition is premature. It has also come out during the hearing that the petitioners already filed their objections. Therefore, it is incumbent upon respondent No.1 to pass a reasoned order at the time of finalizing the inter se seniority after considering the objections of the petitioners and other similarly placed persons in detail. In this view of the matter, without going into the merits of the claims of the petitioners, the writ petition is disposed of with the direction to respondent No.1 to consider the objections of the petitioners before finalizing the inter se seniority. In the light of the apprehension expressed by the learned counsel for the petitioners that respondent No.1 may immediately act upon the final seniority list causing detriment to the interests of the petitioners, respondent No.1 is directed not to act upon the seniority list after it is finalized for a period of two weeks from the date of communication of the final seniority list to the petitioners so as to enable them to avail their remedies, if they feel aggrieved by the final seniority list. Subject to the above direction, the writ petition is disposed of. As a sequel to disposal of the writ petition, WPMP.No.32553 of 2008 and WVMP.No.1374 of 2009 are disposed of as infructuous. _____________________________ C.V. NAGARJUNA REDDY, J Date: 30.04.2009 ES