Contractual Lecturer serving since 2001 on a sanctioned vacant post sought regularisation and pay-scale parity citing Uma Devi and Narendra Kumar Tiwari. Court disposed of the petition directing respondents to consider his regularisation case after hearing, with a reasoned order within six weeks.
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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA Civil Writ Jurisdiction Case No.8197 of 2023
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Dr. Rajesh Kumar S/o Sri Narendra Kumar, Resident of X-12, Ashiana Nagar, Phase-1, P.S- Rajiv Nagar, District- Patna. At present Lecturer (contractual appointment), D.N.S. Regional Institute of Co-operative Management, Shastri Nagar, Patna-800023, under the aegis of National Council for Co-operative Training, New Delhi.
... ... Petitioner/s
Versus
... ... Respondent/s
====================================================== Appearance : For the Petitioner/s : Mr. Arbind Kumar Singh, Adv. For the Respondent/s : Mr. Radhika Raman (C.G.C.), Mr. Ram Tujabh Singh, Adv.
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CORAM: HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE PURNENDU SINGH ORAL ORDER
2 13-06-2023 Heard Mr. Arbind Kumar Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner, Mr. Radhika Raman and Mr. Ram Tujabh Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents.
reliefs:-
“(i). For issuance of writ in the nature of mandamus or any other
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appropriate writ/ order/ direction directing Respondents authorities to regularise the service of petitioner on the post of Lecturer, pursuant to law laid down by Hon'ble Apex Court, as the petitioner is continuously discharging his duty as Lecturer on sanctioned vacant post, since the date of his appointment/joining on said post on 06/11/2001, on contractual basis, pursuant to Office order issued by Respondent no.5 vide letter no. 2(xxviii)/Estt/78/ dated 03/11/2001.
(ii). For issuance of an appropriate writ / order / direction commanding Respondent authorities to fix and make payment of difference amount of arrear as well as current salary at the rate of salary fixed for the post of Lecturer working in regular pay scale as the petitioner having requisite qualification is performing similar work on a duly vacant sanctioned post on consolidated salary since his appointment by competent authority by applying all criteria of employment, and the same being in blatant disregard and violation of articles 14, 16 & 21 of the Constitution of India.
(iii). Any other relief that the petitioner may be found to be entitled to in the facts and circumstances of the present case.”
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authorities from time to time for his regularization on the ground that he was appointed in the year 2001 and had joined the institution namely D.N.S. Regional Institute of Cooperative Management, Patna and he is successfully discharging his duty as Lecturer/Professor till date.
“ 53. One aspect needs to be clarified. There may be cases where
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irregular appointments (not illegal appointments) as explained in S.V. Narayanappa [(1967) 1 SCR 128 : AIR 1967 SC 1071] , R.N. Nanjundappa [(1972) 1 SCC 409 : (1972) 2 SCR 799] and B.N. Nagarajan [(1979) 4 SCC 507 : 1980 SCC (L&S) 4 : (1979) 3 SCR 937] and referred to in para 15 above, of duly qualified persons in duly sanctioned vacant posts might have been made and the employees have continued to work for ten years or more but without the intervention of orders of the courts or of tribunals. The question of regularisation of the services of such employees may have to be considered on merits in the light of the principles settled by this Court in the cases abovereferred to and in the light of this judgment. In that context, the Union of India, the State Governments and their instrumentalities should take steps to regularise as a one-time measure, the services of such irregularly appointed, who have worked for ten years or more in duly sanctioned posts but not under cover of orders of the courts or of tribunals and should further ensure that regular recruitments are undertaken to fill those vacant sanctioned posts that require to be filled up, in cases where temporary employees or daily wagers are being now employed. The process must be set in motion within six months from this date. We also clarify that regularisation, if any already made, but not sub judice, need not be reopened based on this judgment, but there
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should be no further bypassing of the constitutional requirement and regularising or making permanent, those not duly appointed as per the constitutional scheme.”
“8. If a strict and literal interpretation, forgetting the spirit of the decision of the Constitution Bench in Umadevi (3) [ State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3) , (2006) 4 SCC 1 : 2006 SCC (L&S) 753] , is to be taken into consideration then no irregularly appointed employee of the State of Jharkhand could ever be regularised since that State came into existence only on 15-11-2000 and the cut-off date was fixed as 10-4-2006. In other words, in this manner the pernicious practice of indefinitely continuing irregularly appointed employees would be perpetuated contrary to the intent of the Constitution Bench.
9. The High Court as well as the State of Jharkhand ought to have considered the entire issue in a contextual perspective
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and not only from the point of view of the interest of the State, financial or otherwise — the interest of the employees is also required to be kept in mind. What has eventually been achieved by the State of Jharkhand is to short circuit the process of regular appointments and instead make appointments on an irregular basis. This is hardly good governance.
10. Under the circumstances, we are of the view that the Regularisation Rules must be given a pragmatic interpretation and the appellants, if they have completed 10 years of service on the date of promulgation of the Regularisation Rules, ought to be given the benefit of the service rendered by them. If they have completed 10 years of service they should be regularised unless there is some valid objection to their regularisation like misconduct, etc.
11. The impugned judgment and order [ Anil Kumar Sinha v. State of Jharkhand , 2016 SCC OnLine Jhar 2904] passed by the High Court is set aside in view of our conclusions. The State should take a decision within four months from today on regularisation of the status of the appellants. The appeals are accordingly disposed of.
12. We may add that that it would be worthwhile for the State of Jharkhand to henceforth consider making regular appointments only and dropping the
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idea of making irregular appointments so as to short circuit the process of regular appointments.”
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to pass reasoned order within a period of six weeks from the date of production of a copy of this order considering the fact that the petitioner has already crossed the age of 58 years.
of.
(Purnendu Singh, J)
pravinkumar/-
U
2 issues framed by the court
Whether a contractual Lecturer serving since 2001 on a sanctioned post should be regularised in light of Uma Devi's one-time regularisation exception.
Whether equal salary in regular pay scale should be paid to a contractual employee performing similar duties on a vacant sanctioned post.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma DeviRelied on¶5
(2006 (4) SCC 1) · Who else cites this
Narendra Kumar Tiwari & Ors. v. State of Jharkhand & Ors.Relied on¶6
(2018) 8 SCC 238 · Who else cites this
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Dr. Rajesh Kumar
Union of India through Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation
Additional Secretary, Ministry of Cooperation / President, Executive Council NCCT
Secretary, National Council for Co-operative Training (NCCT)
Joint Director (Personnel), NCCT
Director, D.N.S. Regional Institute of Co-operative Management, Patna
Purnendu Singh
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
