HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE K.S. APPA RAO W.P.No. 33341 of 2010 ORDER: This writ petition is filed seeking writ of Mandamus declaring the action of the first respondent, so far as denying the age relaxation on par with the State Government Employees, as illegal, arbitrary and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and consequently, to direct the first respondent to grant the age relaxation to the petitioner on par with the State Government Employees to appear for Group-I examination in pursuance of notification No.39/2008 Supplementary notification No.10/2009 dated 27-07-2009. 2. It is the case of the petitioner that he is working as a Senior Assistant in APSRTC Zonal Stores, Kadapa under the third respondent and he is willing to join Group-I services. The APSRTC Employees Union submitted a representation on 15-10-2007 seeking upper age relaxation upto five years to the serving APSRTC employees who wish to appear for Group-I and Group-II and other allied competitive examinations, but they were not given any age relaxation. The petitioner made an application on 16-06-2010 to the Chief Minister, to the second respondent and other ministers followed by reminders, to relax the age on par with the State Government Employees, but there is no action taken. It is further stated that the first respondent gave age relaxation to the State Government employees, however denied the same to the employees of the APSEB, APSRTC, Corporations, Municipalities etc. It is further stated that APSRTC is governed by the Government of Andhra Pradesh under the statute of Road Transport Corporations Act, 1950, and unless he gets a direction from this Court for age relaxation, the respondents are not in a position to relax the age for his appointment. 3. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner argued at length basing on the averments made in the affidavit filed in support of the writ petition. 4. The learned counsel appearing for the respondents draws the attention of this Court to the decision reported in RAJI REDDY v. APSRTC [1], and urged that the applicants should possess the minimum and maximum age as on 01-07-2008 as prescribed for each post in the notification, and it is clearly mentioned in para-3 of the notification that the employees of APSEB, APSRTC, Corporations, Municipalities etc. are not eligible for relaxation of age and in view thereof, as the petitioner is the employee of the APSRTC, he is not entitled for age relaxation. 5. In view of the clear bar in the notification itself about the relaxation of age, in particular non-eligibility of the APSRTC employees, the petitioner, being one of the employees of APSRTC, is not entitled to get age relaxation. Admittedly the petitioner made several representations to the Chief Minister and others expressing his grievance for relaxation of age. When a statutory provision is made that the maximum age of the applicant should be 39 years as on the date mentioned in the notification and no age relaxation is provided, unless such statutory provisions are relaxed by the competent authority, it cannot be said that the petitioner is entitled to get age relaxation. 6. A perusal of the decision in RAJI REDDY’s case (1 supra), it is observed that the Chief Secretary to the Government of A.P. filed a counter affidavit stating that the posts in the APSRTC are not civil posts, the service in APSRTC is not civil service and that in the circumstances, the Presidential Order is not applicable to recruitments in the APSRTC. It is further averred that the Managing Director of the APSRTC has submitted proposals on 21-05-1998 to the Government for amendment of Regulation No.8 of the 1966 Regulations for forming separate units for appointment with a Revenue District being a unit in respect of recruitment to the posts of drivers and conductors, to restrict appointment opportunities to the local candidates of the revenue District in which the recruitment is to be made and that the proposal is under consideration of the Government. 7. However, in the present case on hand, as the petitioner himself stated that the rules have to be amended and age relaxation to be given to him for applying to the posts in the notification, unless these rules are amended by the competent authority providing age relaxation to the employees of the APSRTC also, in which the petitioner is working, it is premature to give any finding about the eligibility of the petitioner for age relaxation to apply for the posts in the said notification. Therefore, I see no merits in this writ petition, and it deserves to be dismissed. 8. At this stage, it is represented by the learned counsel for the petitioner across the Bar that with the intervention of the politicians, the APPSC is relaxing the age of the applicants for applying to the posts notified in the notification. The learned counsel appearing for the respondents strongly opposed the same. 9. Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. However, it is needless to mention that the petitioner can take appropriate steps, if he is otherwise advised, as per law. No costs. _______________ K.S. APPA RAO, J Date: 14-12-2011 YCR [1] 2003 (4) ALD 96