' This judgment shall dispose of Writ Petitions Nos,4231 of 1993, 4881 of 1993, 4598 of 1993, 6759 of 1993 and 15343 of 1993, in all of which same questions fail for determination.
2. The petitioners in these petitions are employees of various rice mills under the control of Rice Export Corporation of Pakistan. Their grievance is that though a Scheme known as Voluntary Retirement Scheme has been framed by the respondents in respect of the Project Directors, the Deputy Project Directors have been denied this facility.
3. It is argued on behalf of the petitioners that the petitioners have been unfairly discriminated against.
4: The learned counsel for the respondents has raised a preliminary objection as to the maintainability of these petitions which has force. The objection is that respondent No,4 is a Corporation owned and controlled by the Federal Government and the persons serving under it have been declared to be civil servants by insertion of section 2-A in the Service Tribunals Act.
Admittedly, section 2-A is applicable to the present cases and such proceedings pending before this Court are deemed to have abated in view of Article 212 .Of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973.
5. Even otherwise, on merits, the petitioners did not have any case. Admittedly, the Project Directors are a class apart from the Deputy Project Directors. It cannot, therefore, be argued with any success that the facilities which have been made available to the Project Directors should also be made applicable to the other categories of employees. Article 25 of the Constitution does not prohibit or forbid reasonable classification.
' In view of what has been said above, all these petitions are dismissed leaving the parties to bear their own costs.