High Court of Rajasthan dismissed a writ petition seeking regularization of services for employees of government-aided hostels. Relying on the Supreme Court's judgment in Daya Lal's case, the court held that employees of private aided organizations are not government employees and cannot claim regularization or salary parity.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE FOR RAJASTHAN AT JODHPUR
S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 13269/2016
----Petitioners
Versus
----Respondents
For Petitioner(s) : Mr. A.K. Choudhary For Respondent(s) : Mr. Anil Kumar Gaur, AAG
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE REKHA BORANA
Order
11th January, 2023
The present writ petition is the second round of litigation. At the first instance, the present petitioners preferred the writ petitions for regularization of their services on the premise that they were the persons temporarily appointed as Assistant Superintendent in the year 1995 and 1996 in Government Aided Hostels and continued to work as such for more than 10 years. The said writ petitions of the petitioners were allowed and the
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Special Appeals against the same preferred by the State were also dismissed. State preferred SLPs (led by Civil Appeal No.486 of 2011; State of Rajasthan & Ors. Vs. Daya Lal & Ors. ) before the Hon’ble Apex Court in which a specific question was framed by the Hon’ble Apex Court as under:
“(i) Whether persons appointed as Superintendents in aided non-governmental Hostels are entitled to claim absorption by way of regularization in government service or salary on par with Superintendents in Government Hostels?”
Vide judgment dated 13.01.2011, the Hon’ble Apex Court replied to the said question as under:
“10. It is thus evident that insofar as aided hostels were concerned, the Government was liable only to extend aid by way of a grant to students of 6 to 8 standards and students of 8 to 11 standards, staying in such hostels, to meet the expenditure of food, water, electricity, clothes, hair cutting, soap, oil and shoes and another grant for books and stationery of such students. The Government was not liable to bear the expenses of salary and allowances of the employees of the aided hostels and it was for the private organizations which ran the aided hostels to meet the salaries of employees from their own resources. The persons employed in the aided hostels were the employees of the respective organizations running those hostels and not the employees of the Government. The Government has merely prescribed the eligibility conditions to be fulfilled by the private organizations to get
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grants to meet the food and education expenses of students staying in such hostels. Therefore, under no stretch of imagination persons employed by the aided hostels could be termed as persons employed by the State Government. Nor could be Government be held liable for their service conditions, absorption, regularization or salary of employees of private hostels. If the employees (either permanent or temporary) of the aided hostels are not the employees of the Government, but of the aided private charitable organizations which run such aided hostels, they could not obviously maintain any writ petition claiming the status or salary on par with the corresponding post-holder in State Government service, nor claim regularization of service under the State Government. Hence, the writ petitions by persons employed in aided hostels for relief of regularization or parity in pay, were not maintainable and the decision of the High Court granting any relief to them cannot be sustained .” (Emphasis supplied)
Consequently, the appeals of the State were allowed and thereby the writ petitions of the petitioners stood dismissed.
It is the submission of the petitioners that after the said decision, the Government appointed Administrators over all the Government Aided Hostels and the administration of the said Hostels was taken away from the NGOs running them. Thereafter the State of Rajasthan, vide order dated 14.07.2011, directed the hostel Superintendents of Government hostels to take over the charge of the post on which the petitioners were working,
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meaning thereby that the services of the petitioners were terminated and they were replaced by the Government Hostel Superintendents.
Against the said action, the petitioners preferred a writ petition being S.B. Civil Writ Petition No.8330/2014. The said writ petition of the petitioners was disposed of vide order dated 27.11.2014 with the directions to the respondent-authorities to decide the representation/legal notice of the petitioners within a period of two months. The representation filed on 17.09.2014 by the petitioners was rejected vide order dated 15.12.2015 on the premise that because of the insufficiency of the infrastructure and facilities in the aided hostels, the recommendation of the aided hostels has been suspended vide Departmental Order No.46320 dated 20.07.2014. Meaning thereby, all the aided hostels themselves were closed.
Against the order dated 15.12.2015, whereby the representation of the petitioners was rejected, the present petition has been preferred.
In the present writ petition, it has been submitted that the petitioners had been appointed by the Government authorities and therefore were the Government employees only. It has also been submitted that though the petitioners were employees of the Government Department but under mistake, they filed the writ petition alongwith employees of the aided hostels earlier which went up to the Hon’ble Apex Court and were decided in favour of the State. The complete petition has been based on one sole ground that the petitioners have been appointed by the Social
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Welfare Department of the State and therefore were the Government Employees and the said fact was not considered by the Hon’ble Apex Court. It has further been submitted that even if the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court is kept into consideration, the said provided that the relief of regularisation or parity in pay as prayed by the petitioners was not maintainable but the same did not direct for termination of the services of the petitioners. Learned counsel further submitted that once the aided hostels were taken over by the Government, the employees working thereunder automatically became employees of the State Government and were thus entitled not only for continuance in services but also for regularisation of their services. In support of the said contention, learned counsel for the petitioners relied upon the judgment passed by Hon’ble Supreme Court in Andhra University vs. M. Sivaram & Ors. reported in 1994 Supp (3) SCC 750 and the judgment passed by the Division Bench of this Court in D.B. Civil Appeal (Writ) No.331/2010; State of Rajasthan and Anr. vs. Prof. Kishan Gopal and Ors .
Per contra, counsel for the respondents submitted that firstly, the appointments on the post of Additional Hostel Superintendent were made by the Aided Voluntary Organization/Society only and later on, the said post was even abolished vide order dated 19.10.1985, that is much prior to the appointment of the petitioners. Therefore, the appointment itself of the petitioners was without competence. Secondly, the petitioners were working with the aided hostels which were run and controlled by the NGOs and the services of the said employees were governed by the Government Aided Hostel
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Control Rules, 1982 ('the Rules of 1982'). As per the Rules of 1982, appointments on the post of Additional Hostel Superintendents were to be made by the aided organisation/society. Moreover, the post of Part time Hostel Superintendent was even abolished vide order dated 19.10.1985. The petitioners were never appointed on any sanctioned posts and therefore were not entitled to any relief of regularization.
Moresoever, after the judgment of the Hon’ble Apex Court passed in Daya Lal’s case (supra) wherein, the present petitioners too were a party and wherein it has specifically been held by the Hon’ble Apex Court that the persons employed in aided hostels were not entitled for relief of regularization or the parity in pay, the present writ petition for the same reliefs cannot be held to be maintainable before this Court.
Learned counsel further submitted that after closing down of all the Aided Hostels, even otherwise no ground of continuance in services remains with the present petitioners.
Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the material available on record.
In the judgment as passed by the Hon'ble Apex Court as reproduced in para 1, it has specifically been held that the persons employed by the Aided Hostels could not be termed as the persons employeed by the State Government. It was further held that the Government could not be held liable for the
service conditions, absorption, regularisation or even salary of the employees of private hostels .
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In the opinion of this Court, once the Hon'ble Apex Court has held that the State Government cannot be held liable for the salary or absorption of the employees of private hostels and that too, in petitions wherein the present petitioners were also a party, this Court cannot now, in the present writ petition re-appreciate the issue and cannot hold contrary to the same. So far as the continuance of the services of the petitioners is concerned, their services were under the control and governance of the respective Aided organization/society which was running the concerned hostel and was receiving the financial aid from the Government. Providing grant/aid to any organisation/society is the discretion of the State Government and moreover the organisation/society receiving the said aid is not before this Court to challenge the order of stopping of the aid or closing down the hostel. Once the aided hostels have been closed down, the petitioners cannot claim any right against the State Government for any relief more so in light of the fact that the Hon'ble Apex Court has already ruled against them.
So far as the ground raised by the learned counsel for the petitioners regarding taking over of the aided hostels by the State Government is concerned, no such document to substantiate the said fact has been placed on record. There is nothing on record to show that the aided hostels had subsequently been taken over and run by the State Authorities. The specific contention of the State is that all the aided hostels have been closed down and there is no counter on behalf of the petitioners to the said submission. In absence of any document to prove the fact of
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taking over the hostels by the Government, the judgments as relied upon by counsel for the petitioners would be of no avail as they lay down the proposition as to what would be the status of the employees after an organisation/private body is taken over by the Government. The ratio would definitely not apply to the controversy in hand.
In view of above observations and in view of the judgment of the Hon'ble Apex Court passed in Daya Lal's case (supra) , the present writ petition being devoid of merit, is hereby dismissed.
All the pending applications also stand dismissed.
(REKHA BORANA),J
Ashutosh 40-Vij/-
3 issues framed by the court
Whether petitioners who were employees of aided hostels are entitled to regularization or parity in pay after the hostels were taken over by the government.
Whether the state is liable for the service conditions, absorption, or salary of employees of private aided hostels.
Whether the petitioners are entitled to continuation of services after the closure of the aided hostels.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Sukhdev
Mangi Lal
Daya Lal
Ram Lal
State Of Rajasthan
Rekha Borana
As recorded by the court registry
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