Ad-hoc employees cannot be replaced by other ad-hoc employees; termination without notice is illegal, and regularization must be considered for long-serving temporary workers.

JUDGMENT :

(Deepak Roshan, J.)

Heard learned counsel for the parties.

2. The brief facts of the case as per the pleadings are that the petitioner was appointed on daily wager to the post of Data Entry-Cum-Computer Operator on 07.07.2006 in District Transport Office, Giridih, after his name was recommended by the District Information Centre, Giridih. Thereafter, vide various letters were sent by the Deputy Secretary, Transport Department, Government of Jharkhand to Deputy Transport Commissioner, District Transport Officer and to Transport Commissioner containing details of all computer operators (including that of petitioner) appointed in all District Transport Office.

Further, vide letter no. 1291 dated 28.09.2007 petitioner was sent for training and after that the petitioner was deputed in different departments where he did his duty to the satisfaction of the authorities. Thereafter, vide letter no. 340 dated 15.03.2007 as per the order of the Hon'ble Governor, Jharkhand, the under-secretary Government of Jharkhand has sent a letter to Accountant General, Jharkhand, for consent of sanction for various posts including Computer Operator in different offices including District Transport Office.

On 18.07.2009, the Ministerial Secretariat come out with Notification no.881 dated 18.07.2009 with the scheme of regularization of those employees who have completed 10 years of service in terms of the order passed by the Hon'ble Court. Thereafter, the State of Jharkhand came out with a Notification no. 1348 dated 13.02.2015 for regularization.

3. The grievance of the petitioner is that the service of the petitioner has not been regularized even after serving for more than 10 years in the light of direction given by the Hon’ble Apex Court.

4. Learned Counsel for the petitioner submits that from time-to-time respondent no.6 has given satisfactory certificate to the petitioner for his services, as such the case of petitioner was within the knowledge of the respondent authorities; even though, they have not regularized the service of petitioner.

5. Learned counsel further contended that on the one hand, the respondent authorities has not regularized the service of the petitioner; and on the other hand, during pendency of the writ petition, vide Memo no.1776 dated 28.12.2018 service of the petitioner has been terminated; that too without any rhyme and reason just because he filed this writ application and one Sushant Kumar Sinha, has been appointed on the same post i.e. on the post of computer operator from JAP IT on contractual basis which is not tenable in the eyes of law as has been settled by catena of Judgments that one set of contractual employees cannot be changed with another set of contractual employees.

6. Learned Counsel for the respondent submits that prayer of the petitioner is not maintainable as the petitioner was working on a temporary/ contractual basis as Data Entry-cum-Computer Operator but his appointment was not against any sanctioned post. He further submits that the respondents after giving due consideration of the Hon’ble Apex Court direction, constituted a committee to consider the factual matrix of the case of the petitioners in W.P.(S) No.1513 of 2016 [Suresh Walter Nag and others versus the State of Jharkhand and others].

The said committee passed a reasoned order on the basis of "Jharkhand Sarkar Ke Adhinasth Aniyamit Rup Se Niukt Ewam Karyarat Karmiyo Ki Sewa Niyamitikaran Niyamawali, 2015" (hereinafter to be referred as “2015 Regularization Rules”). In the aforesaid Rules at Para-2(ii); “irregular appointment” has been defined and the petitioner falls within that definition and as such his appointment was declared to be illegal and hence not fit for regularization.

7. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and after perusing the documents it appears that, admittedly the writ petitioner was working as Data Entry-cum-Computer Operator for a period of more than 10 years since his engagement in the Department of