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Judgment
S. Siri Jagan, J.—The petitioners are police constables. They were promoted as havildars in the Armed Police Battalion. Based on their seniority in the post of police constable, they are entitled to be reverted as police constables and transferred to the District Armed Reserve. Their grievance in these writ petitions is that although they have been ordered to be transferred to the District Armed Reserve, they are still retained in the Armed Police Battalion and their juniors have already been relieved to join the District Armed Reserve. The apprehension of the petitioners is that, when, ultimately, they are relieved from the Armed Police Battalion to join duty in the District Armed Reserve, based on the transfer already ordered, they would be treated as juniors to others who have already joined there, though others are juniors to the petitioners in the Armed Police Battalion, going by the advice of the PSC at the time of recruitment as Police constables.
A statement has been filed by the Commandant, Kerala Armed Police 2 Battalion, in W.P.(C). No. 31241/2010, which has been adopted by the Government in all the writ petitions. The stand of the Government is that the services of the petitioners are absolutely necessary in the Armed Police Battalion for training police constables who are to undergo training for nine months and that is why they are still retained in the Armed Police Battalion. It is also stated that after nine months, they would be relieved from the Armed Police Battalion to the District Armed Reserve in accordance with their original orders of transfers and they would be allowed to join the District Armed Reserve with seniority over their juniors in the Armed Police Battalion, who have already been relieved from the Armed Police Battalion although the petitioners would join only subsequently. I am of opinion that the same would sufficiently redress the grievances of the petitioners and the petitioners are actually being honoured when the respondents recognise the necessity of their services for successful conduct of the training to new entrants as police constables. In the above circumstances, these writ petitions are disposed of with the following directions:
The petitioners shall be relieved from the Armed Police Battalion to join the District Armed Reserve in accordance with their original orders of transfer as undertaken in paragraph 8 of the statement immediately after conclusion of the training, for which they are retained in Armed Police Battalion and shall be allowed to join the District Armed Reserve with the same seniority in the Armed Police Battalion over their juniors who have already been relieved to join the District Armed Reserve, despite the fact that the juniors had joined earlier to the petitioners in these writ petitions.