VALMIKI J. MEHTA, J

1. This writ petition under Articles 226 and 227 of the Constitution of India is filed by the petitioners/Delhi Public School impugning the Order of the Delhi School Tribunal (DST) dated 21.8.2015 by which the DST accepted the appeal filed by the respondent no.1/Sh. Manoj Bhandari and ordered that the termination of services of the respondent no.1 by the petitioners was illegal and accordingly the Letter of Termination dated 27.3.2015 issued by the petitioners was set aside with further directions to the petitioners to reinstate the respondent no.1 with all consequential benefits.

2. The issue in the present case of disentitlement of a school in Delhi to remove a long serving contractual employee and not making the employee’s services as permanent/regular is no longer res integra in view of two Judgments delivered by this Court in the cases of Hamdard Public School Vs. Directorate of Education and Anr. 202 (2013) DLT 111 and three connected cases with the lead case being Army Public School and Anr. Vs. Narendra Singh Nain and Anr. in W.P.(C) No.1439/2013 decided on 30.8.2013. These judgments hold that such an employee stands deemed regularized in service.

3. In the judgment in the case of Hamdard Public School (supra), this Court after extensively referring to the provisions of the Delhi School Education Act & Rules, 1973 (hereinafter referred to as the Act) and the judgments of the Supreme Court, held that a school in Delhi cannot indeterminably continue an employee on its rolls as a probationer and the employment must be regularized to a permanent/regular employment after ordinarily three years of services as a probationer. The period of three years can be extended at best up to six years only in grave and exceptional circumstances as observed in the case of Hamdard Public School (supra). As per the ratio of the judgment in the case of Hamdard Public School (supra), an employee is deemed to become permanent in his service ordinarily after completion of three years period of probation even if no formal letter is issued by the school regularizing the employment into a permanent one.

4. In the case of Army Public School (supra), the ratio of the judgment in the case of Hamdard Public School (supra) was extended to give benefit of regular employment to contractual employees who were indeterminably continued by the school in Delhi without making the contractual employment permanent. The relevant paras of the judgment in the case of Army Public School (supra) are paras 3 to 8 and which paras read as under:-

“3. On the basis of the admitted facts: in the form of various appointment letters and the termination letters which have been issued by the petitioner-school as detailed above; the provision of Rule 105 of the Delhi School Education Act & Rules, 1973; the judgment delivered by me in the case of Hamdard Public School Vs. Directorate of Education and Anr. in W.P.(C) No.8652/2011 decided on 25.7.2013 interpreting Rule 105; and, the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Management Committee of Montfort Senior Secondary School Vs. Sh. Vijay Kumar and Ors., (2005) 7 SCC 472 read with Division Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Social Jurist, a Civil Rights Group Vs. GNCT & Ors. 147 (2008) DLT 729, the issues which arise, and on which counsel for the parties have been heard, are first as to whether the respondent No.1 at all can be said to only be a contractual employee in terms of the first contractual appointment letter dated 3.12.2007 or whether the employment of respondent No.1 since inception in the peculiar facts of this case would have a statutory favour in view of the provisions of the Delhi School Education Act and Rules, 1973, and secondly as to whether the actions of the petitioner-school amount to over-reach the provision of Rule 105 and is, therefore, against the ratio not only of the categorical language of Rule 105 but also the ratio of the judgment passed by me in the case of H