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State of Gujarat and Ors. vs. R.J. Pathan and Ors.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 342Decided 24 Mar 2022
Civil Appeal No. 1951 of 2022

Background

The respondents were engaged in 2004 as drivers on eleven-month contracts under a temporary "Post-Earthquake Redevelopment Programme" unit of the Gujarat Government. When that project unit was to close, the State tried to place them with the Indian Red Cross Society instead of terminating them, but the employees challenged this and sought regularisation into permanent government service. Their writ petition was dismissed by a Single Judge in 2011, but on appeal a Division Bench of the Gujarat High Court in 2021 directed the State to sympathetically consider regularising them, given they had by then worked for seventeen years, even by creating supernumerary posts if necessary.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the High Court had overlooked that roughly ten of those seventeen years were served only because of an interim status-quo order in ongoing litigation, and such interim-order service cannot count towards a regularisation claim. It held that the employees were appointed to posts in a genuinely temporary project unit, not any sanctioned post in a regular establishment, so the precedents relied on (State of Karnataka v. Umadevi and Narendra Kumar Tiwari), which apply to irregular appointments on regular sanctioned posts, did not help them. The Court also held that a High Court cannot direct creation of supernumerary posts under Article 226. The Division Bench's order was quashed and the original dismissal of the writ petition was restored.

Lesson Learnt

Long service rendered only because of a court's interim order does not itself create a right to regularisation, and courts cannot direct the creation of new government posts to accommodate temporary-project employees who were never appointed against sanctioned permanent posts.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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