IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD TUESDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF JULY TWO THOUSAND AND TEN HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE B. PRAKASH RAO AND HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE G. BHAVANI PRASAD W.A.No.497 of 2004 Between: Y.G. Jayaram ..Appellant AND Dr. K. Satyanarayana Reddy and others .. Respondents JUDGMENT: (Per Hon’ble Sri G. Bhavani Prasad, J) The Writ Appeal is directed against the judgment in W.P.No.5343 of 1992 dated 19-09-2003. The writ petitioners, who are respondents 1 and 2 herein, questioned the memo issued by the Government clarifying that the posts of Readers in A.V. College are only personal to the present incumbents and directing the management to maintain a common seniority list of Lecturers. The writ petitioners claimed that they were appointed as Readers duly following the prescribed procedures and the post of a Reader is a higher post with a higher scale of pay than the Lecturer and as Reader formed separate cadre than the Lecturer, the impugned Government memo cannot be sustained. Pending the Writ Petition, the memo was suspended by a common order of this Court. Thereafter, the writ petition was contested by the Government contending that the posts of Readers are sanctioned subject to certain conditions, which were not complied with, due to which the impugned memo was issued in exercise of the powers under Sections 90 and 92 of the A.P. Education Act and the same cannot be interfered with. The learned Single Judge in the impugned judgment considered whether the writ petitioners have to be considered as a separate category or they should form part of the same category of the Lecturers. The learned Single Judge was of the opinion that the Readers formed a separate cadre, which is not only higher in scale of pay but also higher even in the academic echelons and Readers should be considered for further promotion before any Lecturer is considered for the same and the Lecturer can be considered only when persons who occupied the posts of Readers are ineligible. For coming to such a conclusion, the learned Single Judge relied on certain precedents and earlier decisions of this Court and directed that the Writ Petitions be allowed. In the Writ Appeal, the appellant challenges the said judgment on the ground that the filling up of three Reader posts in A.V. College was without following the due procedure and that apart, there are no Readers in the several subjects in the college. As the appointments were purely personal without conferring any right to promotion, the learned Single Judge ought not to have allowed the Writ Petition. Heard Sri J.R. Manohar Rao, learned counsel for the Appellant and the learned Government Pleader for Higher Education. It is seen from the material on record that the order of the learned Single Judge was stayed by the interim direction by the Division Bench on 18-03-2004 and the official respondents were given the liberty to effect promotions to the post of Principal as per G.O.Ms.No.127 Education (CEI) Department, dated 7-6-1993 after considering all eligible candidates. It is now conceded that accordingly the promotions were given later and that all the members of the teaching faculty, who are parties to this writ appeal, since retired from service on attaining the age of superannuation. So as of now, the questions raised in the writ petition or the writ appeal have become only academic and the decision in the writ petition is based on more the factual background in which the posts of Readers were filled up leading to the Government deciding them as purely personal to those incumbents. If it is clarified that the adjudication in the writ petition shall not operate as precedent in any event in future, the same shall be suffice for the purpose of protecting the rights and interests of any persons similarly placed in future and no further opinion be expressed herein on the merit of the dispute. Accordingly, while clarifying that the impugned judgment shall not operate either as res judicata or as estoppel or as precedent in any future dispute where a similar question may arise, the Writ Appeal is dismissed without costs as unnecessary. __________________ B. PRAKASH RAO, J _____________________ G. BHAVANI PRASAD, J Date: 20-07-2010 Ksn