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The Petitioners further contend that they and the employees of the various State Governments who had come on deputation in connection with the Beas-Sutlej Project were discharging similar duties and were clothed with similar responsibilities. The petitioners, no less than the deputationists, had rendered service to the satisfaction of their employers and therefore they could not be discriminated against in the matter of continuing in their present employment. The policy initiated by the Government of India under which it was decided to retain the deputationists in service and retrench direct recruits like the petitioners is, according to the petitioners, violative of the guarantee of equality contained in Article 14 of the Constitution. In any event, so the petitioners contend, they cannot be removed from service while officers junior to them and less qualified than them who had come on deputation from other States are retained in service.

The only point which now remains to be examined is whether any violation of articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution is involved in the proposed retrenchment of the petitioners. The case of the petitioners is this: They and the 'Deputationists' from State Government services possess similar qualifications, carry the same responsibilities and discharge similar duties and functions. Therefore, no discrimination can be made against them in the matter of continuation in employment. They cannot be retrenched from service and the Deputationists allowed to take their place. If at all there has to be retrenchment consequent upon the completion of works of the Beas Project, the Deputationists must be retrenched along with the petitioners, so that the senior employees in the two categories will be retained in service. Wholesale retrenchment of one category of employees, the direct recruits here, to the exclusion of the other category, the Deputationists, brings about Elegant inequality between the two and is hostile discrimination against the former.

Thus, the petitioners are employees of the Central Government while the Deputationists are employees of the respective State Governments. The terms and conditions of the petitioners' appointments provide for the termination of their employment by one month's notice cr pay in lieu of notice. Their services are also liable to be terminated on completion of the Beas Project for which they were employed. The rights and liabilities of the Deputationists flow from the terms of their service under the State Governments. On completion of the works of the Beas Project, the Deputationists working on that Project are required by their employers, the respective State Government, to work under the B.M. Board. There is no question of the entitlement or right of the Deputationists to work under that Board.

The genesis of the appointments of the petitioners and the Deputationists thus shows that they belong to two distinct and separate classes and cannot be considered as equals in the matter of continuation in their respective employments. The infirmity in the argument of the petitioners on the question of violation of the right to equality is that though they were employed by the Beas Construction Board for the purposes of the Beas Project, they claim in the first instance the right to be transferred to the services of the Bhakra Management Board which, as we have shown earlier, they cannot do. The reason why they claim the right to be transferred to the services of the B.M. Board is clear. If they are entitled to be so transferred, the claim that they are equals of the Deputationists will acquire some plausibility because they will at least be serving, for the time being at any rate, under the same Board. They would then be able to claim equal treatment with the Deputationists. Since the very basis of their claim is fallacious! as they have no right to be transferred to the employment of the B. M. Board, their claim to equal treatment with the Deputationists has to fall with it.