THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION NO.33831 OF 1997 DATE : 26-3-2007 Between: 1. Bandi Sreeramachandra Murthy and another.. Petitioner and 1. The Regional Manager, APSRTC, Visakhapatnam and another … Respondents THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION NO.33831 OF 1997 ORDER: The petitioners, displaced employees of a private bus consequent to the nationalization, were appointed on casual basis on 19.6.1983. Their services were regularized with effect from 29.11.1983. Contending that they were entitled to be absorbed from the date of their initial appointment, the present writ petition has been filed 14 years thereafter in 1997. Sri K.Rama Mohan Mahadev, learned counsel for the petitioners would contend that the petitioners were entitled to be appointed as regular conductors from the date of their initial appointment on 19.6.1983 and that the respondents had acted illegally in not appointing them from the date of their initial appointment on regular basis and regularizing their services five months thereafter on 29.11.1983. He would rely on a depot staff voters list wherein the date of initial appointment of the 2nd petitioner was shown as 19.6.1983. In the counter affidavit filed on behalf of the Corporation it is stated that proceedings dated 30.1.1981 were issued by the Corporation wherein it is specifically prescribed that the candidates would considered against the regular vacancies arising in future. It is stated that while the petitioners were initially appointed on 19.6.1983 on casual basis their services were de- casualized with effect from 29.11.1983 that is the date on which the regular sanctioned vacancy arose and it was subsequently taken into account as their date of appointment. Since the respondents have taken into consideration the date on which the post was sanctioned, as the date of regular appointment, the action of the respondents cannot be faulted nor can the petitioners claim that they have been appointed as regular conductors from the period antecedent even to the date on which the posts were sanctioned. Sri Rama Mohan Mahadev, learned counsel for the petitioners, would place reliance on a judgment of the Supreme Court in Divisional Manager, A.P.S.R.T.C v. P.Lakshmoji Rao[1] which related to regularization of services of conductors engaged on daily wages. The Supreme Court held that in the absence of any service rule or principle of law, which would entitle the conductors to claim regularization from an anterior date i.e., from the date of their initial appointment as daily wage employees, they were not entitled to the said relief. The Supreme Court further held that these employees had failed to establish their legal right to get the status of a regular employee right from the date of their initial appointment on daily wages and the respective dates of regularization assigned to them could not be legally faulted. However, the Supreme Court modified the order of the High Court and held that if any conductors junior to the respondents in the relevant seniority list of the concerned division/region, have got the benefit of regularization or are entitled to get the same by virtue of the judgments that have become final, then the conductors who were seniors to them should be given some benefit on the same principle. Nothing is stated in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition that conductors juniors to the petitioners had been regularly appointed as conductors from the date of their initial appointment. Reliance placed on P.Lakshmoji Rao1 is therefore misplaced. In the absence of any legal right which would entitle the petitioners to claim to be regularly appointed as conductors from the date of their initial appointment on a casual basis, the relief sought for cannot be granted. The writ petition fails and is accordingly dismissed. No order as to costs. ___________ 26-3-2007 asp [1] (2004)2 SCC 433