Sushil Kumar Sinha vs The State of Jharkhand and Others

In this appeal the appellant has challenged the order dated 27/07/2006, passed by the learned Single Judge in W.P. (S) No. 2091 of 2004, .whereby the writ petition tiled by the petitioner/appellant was dismissed.

The relevant facts, in short, are that the appellant was appointed as Junior Accounts Clerk and he joined on 11/12/1986 in the office of Rehabilitation Officer, Medium Irrigation Project, Ranchi vide Annexure-1. From perusal of Annexure-1, it appears that the appellant and some other were appointed by way of stop gap arrangement on ad-hoc basis, since the said office was facing difficulty in functioning due to paucity of employees.

In the appointment letter, it has specifically been mentioned that the services of the employees mentioned therein may be terminated at any time without any prior notice. Subsequently, the service of the appellant was terminated on 19/12/2000. The said order of termination was challenged by the appellant by filing a writ petition, being CWJC No. 534 of 2001 which was disposed of order dated 13/03/2002 vide Annexure-2. The matter was remanded1 with the following order and directions:

The case is remitted to the Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Water Resources Department, government of Jharkhand, Ranchi, who will determine as to whether the petitioner was appointed after due advertisement and selection or hot? If it is found that the appointment of petitioner was made after due advertisement and selection, he will not terminate his service merely on the ground that there was a ban of appointment or the reservation policy was not followed, 14 years having passed.

It will be open to the authority to call for records from the State of Bihar or from the place the petitioner was posted.

In compliance of the aforesaid directions in the said case, after due notice to the appellant an enquiry was conducted and, thereafter, the Secretary of the Department held that the appellant''s initial selection and appointment was made without following any due procedure in contravention of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. He held that the post was never advertised nor the petitioner was ever interviewed and selected by any competent authority, therefore, his appointment was totally illegal. Accordingly, the authority concerned passed a fresh order on 20th February 2004.

The appellant challenged the said order by filing W.P.S. No. 2091/2004, which was dismissed by the learned Single Judge by the impugned order dated 27/07/2006, which is under challenge in this appeal.

It has been contended on behalf of the appellant that after lapse of more than 18 years the services of the appellant could not have been terminated. It has further been contended that the similarly situated persons, whose services were also terminated, filed several writ petitions, which were hoard together and were disposed of by a common judgment dated 05/05/2005, as contained in Annexure-6 and, thereby, their termination orders were quashed.

The said order of the learned Single Judge was also challenged in the Letters Patent Appeals but the Division Bench dismissed all the Letters Patent Appeals by order dated 16/02/2006, contained in Annexure-7 and consequently, all those persons were reinstated in service. According to the appellant, he was also working in the same Department and, therefore, he is also entitled to the same relief, which has been granted to them.

We find that the present case is directly under the teeth of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Official Liquidator Vs. Dayanand and Others, wherein it has been held that temporary, contractual, daily wage or casual employees appointed on ad-hoc basis, their appointments for long continuing in such service do not confer any right to them and they do not acquire any valid right to be absorbed, regularized or to continue in service.

In the present case also as we have already noticed above that the appointment of the appellant was initially made on ad-hoc basis without following the due procedure for such public appointments and, therefore, even if, the appellant has continued in service for a long period, the same did not confer any right to him to continue on the post on which he was appointed without any advertisement or without following the due process of law.

In this view of the matter, we find that the learned Single Judge has rightly dismissed the writ petitions and we do not find any error in his order. Accordingly, this appeal is dismissed.