Appointments made in violation of mandatory provision of statute are wholly illegal and could not be regularized by State.

S.J. Mukhopadhaya, J.

These writ petitions were preferred by employees of Co-operative Societies against their respective show cause notice issued by the Deputy Registrar of the co-operative society asking them to state as to why their services should not be terminated, their appointment being illegal. Instead of submitting reply to the show cause notice, the respective employees have challenged the show cause notice on the ground that their appointments are not suffering from any illegality and the show cause notice is contrary to law.

2. The show cause notices were issued pursuant to judgment passed by Division Bench of this Court in L. Justine Vs The Registrar of Coop. Societies, Chennai reported in 2002 (4) CTC 385, wherein at paragraph 19 (v), the following order was passed :-

"19. ..... (v) direct that within two months of the approval of the special bye-laws under sub-Rule (1) of the Rule 149 of the Rules, the respective Deputy Registrars of Cooperative Societies having jurisdiction over the co-operative societies in their Divisions, shall enquire, by issuing notice to the entire staff recruited from 7. 1980 to 13. 2001, and decide as to whether the said recruitment is in conformity with the special bye-laws approve3d by the Registrar of the Co-operative Societies and terminate the services of such staff members, whose appointments are in contravention of the special bye-laws so approved by the Registrar of Co-operative Societies; it is made clear that while considering the validity or otherwise of the appointment of the staff of co-operative societies, the requirement of notifying the vacancies to the employment exchange shall not be taken cognisance of."

The aforesaid decision was subsequently challenged before the Supreme Court in A.Umarani Vs Registrar of Co-operative Societies reported in (2004) 7 SCC 112, wherein the Supreme Court, by detailed judgment, while reversed some of the findings, dismissed the appeal.

3. All these batch of cases were listed before learned single Judge under the caption "Cases covered by Larger Bench Decision". When the cases were taken up by learned single Judge, some of the counsel, while submitted that the State Government has decided, as a policy decision, to absorb/regularise all of the appointees on one time basis vide letter No.22322/CG/1/2005-7 dated 2nd Nov., 2006, relied upon two unreported orders passed by Division Bench, i.e.,

(1) Order dated 20th Nov., 2006, in W.P. No.17570 of 2005, etc. Batch (Saravanan – Vs – The Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies) ; and (2) Order dated 4th Dec., 2006 in W.P. (MD) No.2640/05, etc. Batch (P.Jeyanthi Devi – Vs – The Deputy Registrar, Co-operative Societies, Madurai).

4. In the case of Saravanan Vs The Deputy Registrar of Co-operative Societies (W.P. No.17570/05, etc.), the Division Bench having noticed letter No. 22322/CG/1/2005-7 dated 2nd Nov., 2006, issued from Co-operative and Consumer Department of the Government of Tamil Nadu, and the submission made by the Addl. Advocate General, passed the following order :-

"4. Learned Additional Advocate General appearing for the Government also brought to our notice that based on the above mentioned proceedings, steps are being taken by the appropriate authority. In those circumstances, we are of the view that there is no need to go into the correctness of the impugned orders/proceedings at this juncture. The respondents/Government/Officers concerned are free to implement the decision of the Government referred above. It is made clear that any person who is not coming within the guideline/direction of the Government for regularisation/continuation in their service, they are free to approach the appropriate forum/Court to vindicate their grievance. It is also made clear that those persons continuing in office by virtue of interim orders of this Court are permitted to continue until final decision being taken by the authority concerned, viz., Regional Joint Registrar of Co-operati