Shiva Kirti Singh and Jayanandan Singh JJ.

1. Heard the parties in respect of all these five Letters Patent Appeals.

2. The orders of the learned Single Judge dismissing the writ petitions filed by the appellants are under challenge in these appeals. In all these cases which relate to appointment to Class III or Class IV posts in the Notified Area Committee, Fatwa, District Patna, the question is - whether appointment of the writ petitioners on daily wage basis or on ad hoc basis or on proper pay scale but without following mandates of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India and the rules of appointment will confer the petitioners with right to hold the posts as permanent employees or not. In some cases there is an additional issue as to what would be the effect of such employees being declared regularized in services soon after their entry in the manner noticed above.

3. The writ court in these cases has dismissed the writ petitions by holding that since the constitutional provisions and rules of recruitment were not followed hence the appointments are void and cannot be regularized. In that view of the matter, the orders terminating services of the writ petitioners were not interfered with. In fact, when the attention of the writ court was drawn to continuance of similarly appointed employees in employment under the Notified Area Committee, in the case of Ashok Kumar (C.W.J.C. No. 2454 of 1999), the court made it clear that similar directions should be given in the case of such private respondents also. That led to similar action of termination of services against other petitioners.

4. On behalf of the appellants, strong reliance was placed on the Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Ram Krishna Dubey v. The State of Bihar and Ors. 2008 (1) PLJR 841. In that case the petitioner was appointed on temporary basis which was extended from time to time and finally, he was regularized. His services were terminated after long period on the ground that the initial appointment was without the due process of selection procedure. The Division Bench allowed the appeal of the writ petitioner in that case on the ground that after permanent absorption he became a permanent civil servant and acquired the protection or right under Article 311(2) of the Constitution of India which permits removal of a permanent Government employee only in accordance with the procedure laid down by law. It was submitted on behalf of the appellants that the case of Secretary, State of Karnataka and Ors. v. Umadevi and Ors., was also considered in that case and it was distinguished on the ground that the claim of the appellant was not for regularization but against termination of a permanent employee hence the judgment in the case of Umadevi (supra) was not attracted. On the basis of the aforesaid Division Bench judgment in the case of Ram Krishna Dubey (supra) it has been submitted that since appellants in Letters Patent Appeal No. 38 of 2002 (Dinesh Prasad v. The State of Bihar and Ors.) and L.P.A. No. 777 of 2000 (Rajendra Kumar v. The State of Bihar and Ors.) were regularized by specific orders after their initial entry on daily wages basis, they must be treated to have become permanent employees and following the ratio of the aforesaid Division Bench decision, they were entitled to all protections of their services as available to a permanent employee.

5. On behalf of the State, the aforesaid submissions were contested and in reply, it was submitted that once the entry of the writ petitioners in services was found to be de hors the rules of appointment and in violation of the constitutional mandates, their services must be treated to be void and such void service cannot clothe the employees with any benefit or protection of regular permanent employee. It was further pointed out that in the case of Ram Krishna Dubey (supra), the post was that of a civil servant to whom Article 311(2) of the Constitution may be available in cer