Judicial Analysis Court Copy Headnote Facts Arguments Court observation

2024 Supreme(SC) 565

SUPREME COURT OF INDIA
J.B. Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, JJ.
Army Welfare Education Society New Delhi – Appellant
Versus
Sunil Kumar Sharma & Ors. Etc. – Respondent
Civil Appeal Nos. 7256-7259 of 2024 (Arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) Nos. 3138-3141 of 2021) with Civil Appeal Nos. 7260-7264 of 2024 (Arising out of S.L.P. (Civil) Nos. 3133-3137 of 2021)
Decided on : 09-07-2024

Advocates appeared:
For the Appellant(s) : Mr. Naresh Kaushik, Sr. Adv. Mr. Vardhman Kaushik, AOR Mr. Manoj Joshi, Adv. Mr. Anand Singh, Adv. Mr. Shubham Dwivedi, Adv. Mr. Dhruv Joshi, Adv. Ms. Shikha John, Adv. Mr. Abhinav Agrawal, AOR Mr. Kartik Sharma, Adv.
For the Respondent(s): Mr. Navin Pahwa, Sr. Adv. Mr. Vinay P Tripathi, Adv. Mr. B. Shravanth Shanker, AOR Mr. Rahul Jajoo, Adv. Ms. Prerna Robin, Adv. Mr. B Yeshwanth Raj, Adv. Ms. Manju Jetley, AOR Ms. Neelam Sharma, AOR

The Army Welfare Education Society is not a 'State' under Article 12, and the doctrine of legitimate expectation does not apply to private employment disputes.

Headnote:(A) Constitution of India - Article 12 - Writ jurisdiction - The court examined whether the Army Welfare Education Society is a 'State' under Article 12, determining that it is not, as it is a private body managing an unaided institution. The court emphasized that the relationship between the institution and its employees is contractual, thus not amenable to public law remedies. (Paras 6, 20, 42)

(B) Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation - The court ruled that the doctrine does not apply as the respondents had no established right or promise from the appellant regarding their service conditions. (Paras 43-52)

(C) Findings of Court - The High Court's judgment was set aside, affirming that the appellants could not be compelled to maintain the previous service conditions of the respondents. (Paras 53-54)

(D) Result - Appeals allowed.

JUDGMENT :

J.B. Pardiwala, J.

For the convenience of exposition, this judgment is divided into the following parts:

INDEX

A.	FACTUAL MATRIX
B.	ISSUES FOR DETERMINATION
C.	SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT
D.	SUBMISSIONS ON BEHALF OF THE RESPONDENTS
E.	JUDGMENT PASSED BY THE LEARNED SINGLE JUDGE
F.	APPEAL COURT JUDGMENT
G.	ANALYSIS
i.	Position of Law
ii.	Doctrine of Legitimate Expectation
H.	CONCLUSION

1. Leave granted.

2. Since the issues raised in both the captioned appeals are the same and the challenge is also to the self-same judgment and order passed by the High Court of Uttarakhand, those were taken up for hearing analogously and are being disposed of by this common judgment and order.

A. FACTUAL MATRIX

3. These appeals arise from the common judgment and order passed by the High Court of Uttarakhand at Nainital dated 02.11.2018 in Special Appeal No. 523 of 2014, Special Appeal No. 524 of 2014, Special Appeal No.128 of 2015, Writ Petition No. 439 of 2015 and Writ Petition No. 776 of 2015 resply by which the High Court dismissed the appeals filed by the appellants herein and thereby affirmed the judgment and order passed by the learned single Judge of the High Court dated 05.08.2014 in Writ Petition No. 341 of 2012 filed by the respondents herein.

4. The controversy involved in the present litigation falls within a very narrow compass. We need not state the facts in detail as the order passed by a coordinate Bench of this Court dated 15.02.2021 speaks for itself and gives more than a fair idea as regards the dispute between the parties. The order dated 15.02.2021 reads thus:-

2. We have heard Mr Sajan Poovayya, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the Bengal Engineering Group and Centre, the petitioner in the Special Leave Petitions arising out of SLP (C) Diary No 24505 of 2020, with Mr Abhinav Agrawal, learned counsel, Mr Naresh Kaushik, learned counsel appearing on behalf of Army Welfare Education Society1, petitioner in the Special Leave Petition arising out of SLP(C) Diary No 26155 of 2020 and Mr Gopal Sankaranarayanan, learned Senior Counsel appearing on behalf of the caveators.

3. The submission which has been urged by the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners is that the Bengal Engineering Group and Centre had entered into a lease agreement with the Institute of Brothers of St. Gabriel in respect of the land, which is a B-3 class land under the Cantonment. A School was being conducted by St Gabriel's Academy. After the term of the lease came to an end, a decision was taken to run a school under the auspices of AWES. AWES runs about 139 schools all over the country. On 28 February 2012, a letter was addressed to the staff of the school indicating that those among the teachers who are eligible in terms of CBSE guidelines would be considered for appointment on ad hoc basis for one year and would have to appear and qualify in a written test under AWES Rules and the teachers will be paid salary at par with the service conditions applicable to other teachers of the Army Public Schools. This gave rise to the filing of a writ petition before the High Court of Uttarakhand. The Single Judge allowed the writ petition by issuing a mandamus to the petitioners not to vary the service conditions of the teaching and non-teaching staff to their disadvantage. During the pendency of the proceedings before the Division Bench in appeal, an order was passed by the High Court on 6 January 2016. Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the order read as follows:

"3. BEG has decided to run the institution as an Army School under the Army Welfare Education Society (AWES), which has also come up in appeal against the judgment. According to AWES, it is running 134 schools all over India. They have a complaint that, at present, for the past two years since 1st April 2012, they are collecting fees at the rates they are collecting in the other Army Public