IMPORTANT POINT
Regularization of services for employees who have served for over ten years is a right that must be considered by the state, provided there are no valid objections, and the state must adhere to its own policies and the legal principles established by the Supreme Court.

JUDGMENT :

Dr. S.N. Pathak, J.

Prayer in all these writ petitions are diverse, may be overlapping in parts. However, the issues involved in all these writ petitions are similar and identical and as such they have been tagged together and are being heard and disposed of by this common Judgment.

PRAYERS:

2. All these petitioners either have prayed for quashment of orders denying their regularization in service or for a direction upon the respondents to regularize their services, who are/were working continuously for more than ten years in their respective Offices/ Departments/University/Instrumentalities of the State, in the light of judgment passed by the Hon’ble Apex Court in case of Narendra Kumar Tiwari & Ors. Vrs. State of Jharkhand & Ors., reported in (2018) 8 SCC 238, as also in view of the Regularization Policy framed by the Government of Jharkhand in the year 2015, amended in the year 2019.

THE FACTS.

3. For the sake of brevity it would be apposite to narrate the brief facts of the case which has given rise to the present disputes. In most of the cases, the petitioners are appointed on daily wage basis/adhoc basis/contractual basis under the Government sector or its Instrumentalities/Universities against the sanctioned posts/unsanctioned posts. They were appointed on tenure basis, but their tenures were extended from time to time as per requirement of the Government. They are continuing in service for more than ten years without any complaint or misconduct. In some of the cases, even recommendation for regularization of their cases have been made by the head of the Departments/ Offices. It is further case of the petitioners that the claims of some of petitioners have been rejected by the respondents and the same are challenged in their respective writ petitions. Claiming that their appointments are irregular and not illegal, their cases ought to have been regularized since they are fulfilling the required conditions in view of legal propositions of law laid down by the Hon’ble Apex Court as well as in view of the Regularization Policy framed by the State Government.

ARGUMENTS ADVANCED ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS

4. Mr. Rajendra Krishna and Ms. Ritu Kumar, learned counsel appearing on behalf of petitioners submitted that the petitioners have been working continuously without any break right from the date of their appointment/engagement and as such, they have completed more than 10 years continuous service and the post held by the petitioners are perennial in nature, but the Department has been extending the contract of the petitioners from time to time without taking any step for filing up the said post in a regular manner either by means of regularization or absorption or otherwise, and as such, the petitioners are entitled for regularization of services. They further argued that some of the petitioners have come to know that the Department is contemplating to replace the petitioners by the persons to be engaged through another Agency against the settled principles of law that a temporary employee cannot be substituted /replaced by another set of contractual /temporary employee. The petitioners after serving the department for more than a decade have become overage and unsuitable for appointment on regular basis. It is further submitted that they have gained experience in the said department, which is ultimately beneficial for the respondent Departments itself and new appointees would have no such experience like that of the petitioners. Referring to the Regularization Policy of the Government, learned counsel submitted that without considering the fate of the people of the State of Jharkhand particularly of those who have been appointed in the State of Jharkhand after 15.11.2000, the scheme does not give any benefit to them rather the benefit has been extended only to those, who have been appointed prior to 15.11.2000,