KERALA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Kerala State Electricity Board, respondent 1 in Original Petition No. 1949 of 1962, is the appellant before us. Respondents 2 to 6 in this appeal were the petitioners in that original petition. Respondent 2 in the original petition, the State of Kerala, is respondent 1 before us. There is also an intervenor. He was brought on record in pursuance of our order in Civil Miscellaneous Petition No. 1269 of 1964, dated 23 June 1964.

(2.) RESPONDENTS 2 to 6 and the intervenor are junior engineers in the service of the board. The junior engineers, both in the electrical wing and in the civil wing, consist of two categories of persons: those directly recruited; and those promoted from the grade of first-grade overseers.

(3.) RESPONDENTS 2 to 6 and the intervenor belong to the category of persons promoted from the grade of first-grade overseers, and they do not possess the higher qualifications prescribed for direct recruitment. The qualifications prescribed for direct recruitment, both in the electrical and civil wings, are higher; and we are assured that those who possess the higher qualifications are called by the board "graduate junior engineers," even though they may not possess a degree but only one of the other qualifications which the board has specified as equivalent to a degree. We shall employ the same phraseology in the judgment and style the junior engineers possessing the qualifications prescribed for direct recruitment as junior engineers as "graduate junior engineers 'and those who do not, as "non-graduate junior engineers. "