Govt of NCT of Delhi & Ors. vs. Veena Jetly and Ors.
Background
Veena Jetly joined as a Demonstrator in a Delhi government polytechnic. Following a 1972 government committee's recommendations, a 1987-88 staffing scheme let existing teachers who obtained an alternate qualification (an engineering diploma plus a specific teacher-training diploma plus 5 years' experience) be absorbed, as a one-time relaxation, into the upgraded post of Lecturer. She completed the required training (sponsored by her department) and was made an ad hoc Lecturer in 1993, but the Recruitment Rules amended that same year never actually wrote this alternate qualification into the rules, so the Union Public Service Commission kept refusing to regularise her despite the department's own repeated attempts, over three decades and multiple rounds of litigation, to get the Rules fixed. A Tribunal ultimately ordered the government to complete the pending Rules amendment and then regularise her.
Decision Breakdown
The High Court found no actual evidence that the government had ever taken even a tentative decision to amend the Recruitment Rules, and held that in any event the Tribunal had exceeded its jurisdiction: courts and tribunals cannot direct the executive to amend Recruitment Rules framed under Article 309 of the Constitution, nor order it to complete an unadopted internal proposal to do so. Since the Rules as they actually stood never included her alternate qualification, she could not be regularised as Lecturer regardless of how long she had served in that role on an ad hoc basis. The Tribunal's judgment was quashed, and the Government's writ petition was allowed.
Lesson Learnt
Courts can enforce rules as they exist, but cannot compel the government to amend its Recruitment Rules or finish a proposed rule change, however sympathetic or long-pending the case: a regularisation claim ultimately depends on the rules actually in force, not on rules the government was merely considering.