JUDGMENT Gopalan Nambiyar, C. J. 1. The controversy agitated in this writ appeal relates to the selection and appointment to the post of Professor, Electrical Engineering, in the college of Engineering. The rival contestants for the post are the appellant and the 1st respondent. The 1st respondent challenged the appointment of the appellant and claimed seniority over him by the writ petition which was allowed by the learned Judge, against whose judgment this appeal has been preferred. 2. The service particulars of the appellant and the 1st respondent are as follows The appellant possessed an M.Sc. Degree in engineering which was obtained by him in 1960, He was appointed a Lecturer by order dated 19th June 1960 and joined the post on 20th July 1970. He was regularised as Lecturer on 8th October 1960 and continued in that post till 20th July 1962. He was on leave from that date for obtaining the Ph.D. Degree which he did sometime in December 1964. He resumed the duties as Lecturer sometime in the middle of 1964. He has appointed as Assistant Professor on 5th December 1964 and continued in that post till 29th October 1971 on which date he was provisionally appointed Professor. He continued in that appointment till 18th February 1976. In 1976, he was appointed Professor (Placement and Training) in the Directorate of Technical Education. 3. Turning now to the 1st respondent, his service particulars stand thus: he was appointed Lecturer on 8th October 1960 and regularised from that date. He was on leave from 4th August 1962 to 4th August 1963 and rejoined on 4th August 1963. He went to Canada for obtaining the Ph.D. Degree on 6th September 1969 and returned after obtaining the degree only in the middle of August 1973. 4. The qualifications for the Professor's post for which the contest has centred in this appeal are prescribed by Ext. R-1 G.O. dated 8th March 1966. That requires a postgraduate degree in Engineering and 8 years teaching experience in Engineering College, of which five years should be after acquiring the postgraduate degree. 5. The post of Professor is a selection post to which selection and appointment are governed by rule 28 (b) (i) of the State and Subordinate Services Rules as it stood at the relevant time. 5. The post of Professor is a selection post to which selection and appointment are governed by rule 28 (b) (i) of the State and Subordinate Services Rules as it stood at the relevant time. That Rule reads thus "28 (b) (i) Promotion and appointment by transfer according to merit Appointments to a selection category grade in a service or class shall be made from a select list prepared from among members eligible for appointment to such category or grade in accordance with these rules and the special rules, on the basis of merit and ability, seniority being considered only where merit and ability are approximately equal. Persons included in the select list shall be ranked in the order of their seniority in the lower category or grade........................ " This Rule itself was a statutory incorporation of the provisions of G.O. (P) No. 420, dated 29th December 1967, and, in particular, of Rule 8 thereof. Ext. P-4, dated 15th June 1972 is the Government Order of approval of the revised select list prepared by the Departmental promotion committee for promotion to the category of Professor in Electrical Engineering in the Government Engineering Colleges. In that list, the appellant is No. 1 and the 1st respondent No. 2. There are two others as Nos. 3 and 4 with whom we are not concerned. By Ext.P-5 order dated 2nd August 1972 both the appellant and the 1st respondent were appointed Professors, the appellant in Trivandrum, and the 1st respondent in Trichur. The 1st respondent could return from Canada only by the middle of August 1973. He seems to have filed a representation dated 11th December 1973 (copy Ext. P-6) which was disposed of by Ext. P-7 order dated 3rd July 1974. In Ext. P-6 representation he prayed for modification of the ranking in Ext. P-4 list and for consequential re-consideration of the promotion effected by Ext. P-5. This was rejected by Ext. P-7 order dated 3rd July 1974. The writ petition to quash the same was filed on 22nd November 1974. The learned judge allowed the writ petition on the ground that under rule 28 (b) (i) of the State and Subordinate Services Rules the 1st respondent was entitled to be ranked above the appellant and therefore he had preferential claims for appointment to the post. 6. The writ petition to quash the same was filed on 22nd November 1974. The learned judge allowed the writ petition on the ground that under rule 28 (b) (i) of the State and Subordinate Services Rules the 1st respondent was entitled to be ranked above the appellant and therefore he had preferential claims for appointment to the post. 6. Counsel for the appellant attacked the reasoning and the conclusion of the learned Judge and prayed that the 1st respondent's writ petition was liable to be dismissed on four grounds. First, that the 1st respondent had an alternative remedy of appeal under the Civil Services (Classification, Control and Appeal) Rules, against the ranking list and the select list Ext. P-4. Next, that the representation Ext. P-6 preferred by him and even the O.P. filed to quash Ext. P-7 were both barred by delay and laches. We are not disposed to entertain or to accept these contentions of the appellant, especially because the learned Judge has not chosen to accept them and has proceeded to hear and dispose of the writ petition on the merits. We are also satisfied that having regard to the nature of the controversy, and the importance of the question raised, we would not be justified in defeating the 1st respondent's writ petition on the grounds of delay and laches urged by counsel for the appellant. 7. The third and the fourth of the objections urged by the counsel are quite substantial and require serious notice. These grounds are that the 1st respondent was not qualified to be selected and appointed as Professor; and that the interpretation placed by the learned Judge on Rule 28 (b) (i) was not warranted or justified. 8. We have referred to the qualifications for selection and appointment fixed by Ext. R-1. We have also given the service particulars of the 1st respondent. From the said record of service of the 1st respondent, it would be seen that he would not have the requisite eight years teaching experience as Lecturer unless the period spent by him during the time that he was engaged in studies for getting Ph.D. Degree in Canada is counted as teaching experience. We are unable to see how this can count as such. We are unable to see how this can count as such. The learned Judge held that the 1st respondent is qualified on the only ground that the Departmental Promotion Committee had not chosen to disqualify him and had included in the select list. In the face of Ext. R-1, we are afraid we cannot accept this as sufficient to pass muster to the specific challenge on the ground of want of qualifications raised by the appellant. Our attention was drawn to Ext. R-2 G.O. dated 13th April 1972, (after the notification in question, which resulted in the impugned selection). That G.O. clarified that the period of doctorate course would be reckoned only as professional experience and would not be reckoned as regular teaching experience at the collegiate level, stipulated in the Service Rules. Counsel for the 1st respondent would argue from this G.O. that it is implicit that till it was passed, the period spent during doctorate course would count as teaching experience. We cannot regard it as such; and in the absence of any definite and positive pointer enabling the time spent for acquiring the doctorate degree as teaching experience, we are not prepared to accept the position. We accept the objection of the appellant that the 1st respondent was not qualified. 9. No less serious is the objection based on the interpretation of Rule 28 (b) (i). We have extracted the rule. The post of Professor, is a selection post. From its very nature, and upon express provision of the rule itself, this has to be filled up on consideration of merit and ability, seniority being considered only where merit and ability are approximately equal. This is expressly provided in the earlier part of the rule. Reliance was placed by the appellant on the last sentence in the rule, which states that persons included in the list shall be ranked in the order of their seniority in the lower category or grade. From this it was argued that whatever be the process or the method of selection, at the end of it, the list had to be drawn up according to the seniority in the lower category and appointment had to be made on that basis. To so understand the last sentence of the rule would be quite inconsistent with the principles of selection based on merit and ability, and also destructive of the earlier part of it. To so understand the last sentence of the rule would be quite inconsistent with the principles of selection based on merit and ability, and also destructive of the earlier part of it. We do not think that, read as a whole, this is the proper effect of the rule. Comparison with other services where similar rules of appointment on the basis of merit and ability have been sanctioned and recognised only confirms us in the impression that such is not the effect of the rule. The selection is to be on the basis of merit and ability. On such considerations, the select list is prepared and drawn up. But the fact that the select list is drawn up on the basis of merit and ability would not upset the rank of the persons concerned, in the lower grade. That would not make it any the less a selection on grounds of merit and ability. We are, therefore, unable to sustain the reasoning and the conclusion of the learned Judge. We allow this appeal and set aside the judgment of the learned Judge and direct that O.P. No. 5279 of 1974 will stand dismissed. There will be no order as to costs.