Contractual employees have no vested right to claim regularisation, and the employer is not obligated to hire them beyond the contract period if alternative arrangements can be made.

JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioners in all these petitions, who are post-graduate and more in different subjects, were engaged as Subject Specific Teachers (“SSTs for short”) under Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan, (“RMSA for short”). The aforesaid scheme is now subsumed and covered under Smagra Siksha scheme.

2. The petitioners, as is the case set up by them, were engaged/hired to provide SSTs for 110 up-graded High Schools, purely on contractual basis for one year on different dates indicated in the orders of their provisional engagement issued by the State Project Director, RMSA. The engagement was contractual in nature and for a period of one year on consolidated salary of Rs.30,283/- per month. The initial contractual engagement of the petitioners came to an end after the expiry of period of one year, however, vide Government Order No. 222-Edu of 2019 dated 09-07-2019, the Government accorded sanction to the temporary re-hiring of 550 SSTs for 110 High Schools upgraded under RMSA, who had already rendered their services during the year 2019, up to 30-06-2019, for one month, purely on contract basis from 10-07-2019 to 10-08-2019 in winter zone and from 15-07-2019 to 15-08-2019 in summer zone. It was specifically provided that, re-hiring shall be terminated on 10-08-2019 in winter zone and with effect from 15-08-2019 in summer zone or when provision of regular teaching staff is made by the department by way of rationalization, whichever was earlier. This is how, the petitioners, who had earlier worked for one year, also came to be re-hired for one month in terms of the aforesaid Government order and were terminated as per the stipulation contained therein. The petitioners are not in service with effect from 10-08-2019 in winter zone and 15-08-2019 in summer zone.

3. The petitioners are aggrieved of the action of the respondents taken in terms of Government order No. 222-Edu of 2019 (supra) and seek writ of mandamus commanding and directing the respondents to re-hire them as SSTs in the upgraded high schools, primarily on the ground that the need, for which the petitioners were engaged as SSTs, still exists. Petitioners also seek a direction to the respondents to allow the petitioners to continue in service after re-hiring and consequently regularise their services as SSTs.

4. The writs prayed for in these petitions are sought primarily and essentially on the following grounds:-

(i) That the engagements of the petitioners as SSTs, though on contractual basis, was to meet a specific requirement of 110 high schools in the UT of J&K, upgraded under RMSA and that need has not come to an end. The respondents still need the services of SSTs and, therefore, replacing the petitioners by making similar arrangement or even by way of rationalization within the department, is illegal, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

(ii) That RMSA, under which the petitioners came to be engaged and which scheme subsequently was subsumed under Smagra Siksha, does not provide for supplying the requirement of SSTs by any mode other than by way of hiring on contractual basis. The respondents have, thus, acted contrary to the object and spirit of the scheme and have thrown out the petitioners merely on the ground that the respondents are in a position to provide SSTs for 110 upgraded High Schools by way of rationalization of existing regular teaching staff available in the School Education Department.

(iii) That, other States in the country, who too have implemented the RMSA/ Smagra Siksha schemes, have allowed the hired staff to continue till the subsistence of the scheme. The respondents, by adopting a different method, have subjected the petitioners to hostile discrimination, viz-a-viz their counterparts working in other States.

(iv) That the staff, other than the SSTs, has been allowed to continue by the respondents thereby creating a class within the class, which is not permissible in law and tantamount to subjecting the petitione