JUDGMENT

V.N. Khare, J.-The appellant (hereinafter referred to as the Corporation) is established and constituted under the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the Act). One of the duties assigned to the Corporation under the Act is to provide medical service to the residents of the Corporation. For that purpose, the Corporation has set up four dental clinics. The dentists attending the said clinics are the Corporation s employees recruited through the positive act of selection as provided under the statutory rules framed in that regard. Whenever any doctor of the Corporation is on leave, the Corporation takes the services of private doctors only with a view that patients may not be inconvenienced. Such doctors in lieu of their services are paid their fee on daily basis. The respondent herein is a dental surgeon who was carrying on his private practice from private clinics. Since early seventies the Corporation had been taking the services of the respondent for treating the patients whenever the Corporation s dental surgeons were on leave. In the year 1984 the Corporation decided to fill the vacant posts of dental surgeons in its clinics, and for that