IMPORTANT POINT
The court ruled that an appointment against a leave vacancy requires adherence to prescribed procedures, and the appellant lacked the legal right to compel salary payment from the University.

JUDGMENT

Anil K. Narendran, J.

The appellant, who is the petitioner in W.P.(C)No.10037 of 2015, has filed this writ appeal invoking the provisions under Section 5(i) of the Kerala High Court Act, 1958, challenging the judgment dated 16.11.2021 of the learned Single Judge in that writ petition, whereby the said writ petition was dismissed with a direction that the salary for the period 01.09.2014 to 15.06.2015 to be paid to the appellant-petitioner if he had actually rendered service as Lecturer in English in Sullamussalam Arabic College, Areacode, Malappuram District, as pleaded in the writ petition, within a period of 45 days from the date of receipt of a certified copy of that judgment, and the salary for the subsequent period when the service of the petitioner was taken with effect from 01.06.2020 shall also to be paid.

2. The aforesaid writ petition was one filed by the appellant seeking a writ of certiorari to quash Ext.P3 Government order dated 15.05.2013, Ext.P4 Government order dated 01.11.2013 and Ext.P5 Government letter dated 18.02.2014 to the extent to which those are sought to be invoked against the appellant; a declaration that Exts.P3, P4 and P5 cannot be invoked against the appellant, in the facts and circumstances of the case; a writ of certiorari to quash Ext.P6 Government letter dated 11.06.2014 addressed to the appellant, Ext.P7 letter dated 11.11.2014 of the 3 ^rd respondent Deputy Director of Collegiate Education, addressed to the 6 ^th respondent Principal, Sullamussalam Arabic College and Ext.P8 Government letter dated 31.01.2015 addressed to the appellant.

3. On 09.04.2015, when the writ petition came up for consideration, the learned Single Judge passed an interim order directing the University to take a decision regarding the approval for the appointment of the appellant. The salary due to the appellant was directed to be disbursed on getting approval of his appointment. By Ext.P10 letter dated 23.05.2015 of the Registrar of the 4 ^th respondent University, produced along with the interlocutory application filed in the writ petition, the appellant was informed that the whole matter on the approval of the appointment as Lecturer in English for the period from 01.09.2013 to 31.08.2014 against the extended Leave Without Allowance (LWA) vacancy of Abdul Gafoor Chozhakkattu is placed before the next SC on SAC for consideration.

4. After considering the rival contentions, the learned Single Judge dismissed the writ petition with a direction that the salary for the period 01.09.2014 to 15.06.2015 to be paid to the appellant if he had actually rendered service as Lecturer in English in Sullamussalam Arabic College, as pleaded in the writ petition, within a period of 45 days from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the judgment, and also the salary for the subsequent period when the service of the petitioner was taken with effect from 01.06.2020. Paragraph 6 and also the last paragraph of that judgment read thus;

''6. There are no averments in the writ petition as to how and in what manner the appointments came to be in favour of the petitioner, whether any regular selection process was initiated by the Department by sending intimation to the public service. No document has been placed on record as to whether the salary paid to the petitioner was out of the corpus of the Government or otherwise. Thus, the petitioner cannot seek the indulgence of this Court for issuance of the writ in quashing the directions according to clauses of Exts.P6, P7 & P8 and under the garb of the same, seek the regular appointment and claim other benefits. It was only a stop-gap arrangement, that too, for a particular period and when the period was over, have again been in service. That cannot be to the benefit of continuity of service or deemed to have been considered an appointment in a substantive post. The only interference this Court can cause is with regard to the direction to the Management of the University to pay th