The Allahabad High Court on Monday came to the rescue of 18,000 Uttar Pradesh [Images] policemen, whose services had been summarily terminated by the Mayawati [Images] government on charges of  'large scale irregularities' in their recruitment carried out by the preceding Mulayam Singh Yadav [Images] regime.

The writ petition , moved by the sacked cops had been pending before Justice DP Singh , who had reserved judgement in the case some four months ago.

Delivering the verdict on Monday afternoon, Singh directed the state government to restore the services of all the dismissed cops.

Soon after she assumed office in May 2007, chief minister Mayawati instituted a high level probe into the recruitments. The inquiry report alleged large scale irregularities in the recruitment process, following which the government took a decision to terminate the services of 18000 of the 20000 new recruits.

Even as the writ petition was pending before the court, the government decided to reinstate each of the 34 police officers who were earlier suspended for their 'alleged complicity' in the recruitments.

The state government was however in no mood to relent and proposes to move a review petition before a division bench of the same court. "We will file an appeal against the order of the honourable court," principal home secretary Kunwar Fateh Bahadur told reporters in Lucknow.

Chief counsel of the UP government, Devendra Upadhaya said, "since the order was issued by a single judge, we will first move our appeal before a division bench."

The Samajwadi Party camp  was jubilant at the court order. "Our stand has been vindicated, we always maintained that the dismissal of these poor cops was not only unfair but illegal," stressed  state SP chief Shivpal Yadav, who was largely responsible for the recruitments in his capacity as the most powerful minister in elder brother Mulayam's regime.