Illegal appointments made through back door entry cannot be regularised or reinstated.

1. - The petitioner, who is an ex-employee of the Revenue Department of the State of Rajasthan (office of Settlement Commissioner, Jaipur) (respondent No. 2) has filed this writ petition on the grounds inter-alia that he was appointed as driver w.e.f. 1.3.1990 on temporary basis in the office of respondent No. 2 and he discharged his duties on the said post till 1.9.1993, when his services were terminated under the verbal order by the said respondent. He was paid his salary on daily wage basis through muster-rolls.

2. The grievance of the petitioner is that instead of regularising his services after having served the department for a period of over three years, there was no justification to terminate his services by a verbal order of the then Additional Commissioner (Settlement), Jaipur, whereas in-fact the petitioner had marked his attendance in the muster rolls, maintained in the office of the said respondent up-to 3.9.1993.

3. It has further been contended by the petitioner that thereafter he was not allowed to discharge his duties in the office of the said respondent nor he was allowed to mark his attendance register and on account of which he made a representation dated 4.9.1993 to respondent No. I vide (Annexure-2). The petitioner has further assailed the validity of the oral impugned order of termination dated 3.9.1993 on the ground that while one Lakhan Singh Meena, who was also appointed as a Driver on daily wage basis w.e.f. 1.5.1993 along with the petitioner and is continuing in the office of respondent No. 2 till date, the services of the petitioner had been dispensed with without any justification on the record and this has resulted in violation of Articles 14 & 16 of the Constitution of India. He has further contended that he had a right to be regularised in service and there was no prima-facie reason or justification in terminating his services. He has further stated that admittedly when junior person is continuing in service as a Driver, the question of non-availability of vacant post would not arise on this ground alone, therefore, he is entitled to be reinstated in service. In the premises, the petitioner has consequently sought the relief of reinstatement with continuity of service besides back wages and other benefits.

4. The respondents on being noticed by this Court have controverted the aforesaid contentions of the petitioner on the grounds inter-alia that the petitioner had never been appointed by issuance of any appointment order nor any joining report was obtained from the petitioner.

5. During the course of hearing this Court was informed that it is the practice prevalent in the Department of the Settlement Commissioner to appoint daily wagers by verbal orders as and when the exigencies of the work may so require and as such no orders in writing are issued at the time of their appointments and likewise when their services are dispensed with by the department, no formal orders of termination in writing are conveyed to the said employees because of the prevalent practice to appoint the employees by oral orders in the office of respondent No. 2 as so stated by the learned counsel for the respondents. Since the petitioner was a muster roll employee appointed as a daily wager, any formal order terminating his services was not issued.

6. The writ petition was admitted for hearing on 23.9.1993 and notice to show cause was issued to the respondents. On 11.1.1994, when the matter was taken up by this Court, the learned Additional G.A. for the State had stated that since the services of the petitioner were not found satisfactory, the same were terminated by the respondents but at the same time, the department was ready to produce the service record of the petitioner f6r perusal of this Court and for which two weeks' time was sought for doing the needful. The learned Single Judge of this Court accordingly granted two weeks' time to the respondents for making available the service record of the petitioner on