Point of Law: There are enough breaks in service of the petitioner-appellant in almost all the years and he has not worked for months together- findings that the petitioner-appellant has not put in seven years of continuous service is not against the record or incorrect.

JUDGMENT :

PANKAJ MITHAL, J.

1. Under challenge in this Letters Patent Appeal is the judgment and order dated 22nd November 2018 passed by the learned Single Judge dismissing SWP No. 657/2018 Bashir Ahmad Dar vs. State of JK & Ors.

2. The petitioner-appellant in the aforesaid writ petition claimed regularization of his services in terms of SRO 64 of 1994 and to accord him the same treatment as was given to one Ali Mohammad Bhat vide order dated 10th August 2012. At the same time he prayed for the quashing of the order dated 12th February 2018 by which his claim for regularization as aforesaid was rejected.

3. The writ court in dismissing the petition held that in exercise of writ jurisdiction, the court cannot enter into any fact-finding mission so as to ascertain the disputed questions regarding continuous discharge of duties by the petitioner-appellant for a continuous period of seven years which is one of the conditions for regularization in terms of SRO 64 of 1994.

4. The facts as revealed are that the petitioner-appellant was allegedly appointed as a daily-wager in the Agriculture/Sericulture Development Department sometime in the year 1986. On completion of seven years of continuous service, he claimed regularization in terms of SRO 64 of 1994. Since his case was not considered for regularization, he preferred SWP No. 624/1995, but the said writ petition was disposed of on 12th February 1996 with the direction to the respondent-department to consider the case of the petitioner-appellant for regularization.

5. In pursuance to the above direction, the case of the petitioner-appellant for regularization was considered by the department and it was rejected vide order dated 24th August 1998. The petitioner-appellant challenged the above rejection order by filing SWP No. 297/2002 which came to be disposed of vide order dated 7th April 2008 with the direction to the respondent-department to reconsider the case of the petitioner-appellant for regularization afresh.

6. Since as per the above direction, the case of the petitioner-appellant was not considered afresh, the petitioner-appellant initiated proceedings for contempt by filing a contempt petition No. 311/2008, wherein the respondents had produced the consideration order dated 25th October 2008 rejecting the claim of the petitioner-appellant. Accordingly, the contempt proceedings were closed on 12th March 2009 giving liberty to the petitioner to challenge the aforesaid consideration order.

7. The petitioner-appellant accordingly filed SWP No. 1883/2009 challenging the order dated 25th October 2008 whereby his claim had been rejected.

8. The aforesaid petition was disposed of vide order dated 4th April 2016 with the direction to the respondents to extend the benefit of the judgment and order dated 17th March 2016 passed in SWP No. 519/2016 to the petitioner-appellant also, provided he is similarly circumstanced with the petitioner of the said writ petition.

9. Since again no consideration was accorded as directed, petitioner-appellant initiated fresh contempt proceedings No. 491/2016 wherein the consideration order dated 8th October 2016 was produced rejecting the claim of the petitioner-appellant.

10. Aggrieved by the aforesaid order dated 8th October 2016, the petitioner-appellant filed SWP No. 1711/2016 which upon consideration was disposed of on 10th August 2018 with the direction to the respondents to consider the case of the petitioner-appellant afresh after examining the entire records as to whether the petitioner-appellant has completed seven years of continuous service or not.

11. In pursuance of the above directions of this Court, the respondent-department reconsidered the matter and vide order dated 12th February 2018 refused to regularize the services of the petitioner-appellant on the ground that he is not eligible for regularization under the aforesaid SRO 64 of 1994.

12. The submission of learned counsel for the petitioner-appellant is that the learned Single Judge manifes