Hon'ble Judges/Coram:
M. Hidayatullah, C.J., J.M. Shelat, K.S. Hegde, A.N. Grover and Vashishtha Bhargava

JUDGMENT

K.S. Hegde, J.

1. These petitions are brought by some of the Gazetted Officers serving in the forest department of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Some of them are serving as Conservators of Forests, some as Divisional Forest Officers and others as Assistant Conservators of Forests. All of them feel aggrieved by the selections made from among the officers serving in the forest department of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to the Indian Forest Service, a service constituted in 1966 under Section 3(1) of the All India Services Act, 1951 and the rules framed thereunder. Hence they have moved this Court to quash notification No. 3/24/66-A-15(IV) dated the 29th July 1967 issued by the Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, as according to them the selections notified in the said notification are violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and on the further ground that the selections in question are vitiated by the contravention of the principles of natural justice. They are also challenging the vires of Section 3 of the All India Services Act, Rule 4 of the rules framed under that Act and Regulation 5 of the Indian Forest Service (Initial Recruitment) Regulations 1966, framed under the aforementioned Rule 4.

2. Section 2(A) of the All India Services Act, 1951 authorises the Central Government to constitute three new All India Services including the Indian Forest Service. Section 3 provides that the Central Government shall after consulting the Government of the States concerned including that of the State of Jammu and Kashmir to make rules for the regulation of recruitment and the conditions of service of persons appointed to those All India Services. Sub-section (2) of Section 2 prescribes t........