The Division Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court took the view that "when all the facts relating to the pension admissible to an employee governed by the Hyderabad Civil Service Rules were placed before the Government of India and when gave a considered opinion, that opinion is a prior approval satisfying the requirement of section 115 (7)". We are unable to follow this line of reasoning. By the said letter dated March 13, 1973, the Government of India was requested to accord approval to the said amendment if it considered it necessary so to do. By its said reply dated April 28, 1973, the Government of India categorically stated that the said amendment did not require its prior approval nnder the said section 115 and, therefore, did not give any approval to the said amendment. To equate the not giving of approval with a prior approval satisfying the requirements of the proviso tu sub-section (7) of section 115 appears to us to be a contradiction in terms as also to say that a letter written on April 28, 1973, was a prior approval given to an amendment which was made more than two years earlier on February 3, 1971. The Statement made in the said letter dated March 13, 1973 that hy the said amendment the conditions of service were not being varied was incorrect because by the said amendment the maximum pension of Rs. 1,000 per month in J.G. Currency was being reduced to the equivalent in that currency of O.S. Rs. 1,000 per month, namely, to Rs. 857.15 per month and that too with retrospective effect from the date of the coming into force of the rules, namely, October 1, 1954. For such an amendment the previous approval of the Central Government was required by the proviso to sub-section (7) of section ll5. Such approval was not given and the amendment made by the said Notification was, therefore, invalid and inoperative so far as it concerned persons referred to in sub-section (I) and (2) of section 115 of the States Reo1ganization Act. The questian whether even with respect to persons other than those referm;I it in the said sub-sections, the said Notification in so far as it is retrospective is valid does not arise in these Appeals and does not fall to be decided.