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IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS
ANITA SUMANTH, J.
Dr. P. Raja and Others – Petitioners
Versus
Union of India, Rep. by its Secretary and Others – Respondents
W.P. Nos. 12785 to 12788 of 2015
Decided On : 09-11-2021
Constitution of India, 1950 - Article 226 - Employment - Terminating Employment - Whether project was completed successfully - Whether non-continuation of their services was for reasons on poor performance or on allegation of their participation in protest - Whether mode of appointment of petitioners is proper – Held, If violations were merely procedural, but largely confirming to applicable Rules, then, such appointments would be liable to be accepted - Per contra, if appointments were unsanctioned and contrary to Rules or motivated by mala-fides and extraneous considerations, such appointments were liable to be eschewed and ignored and there was no question of regularizing same - Commission report would reveal that there was a procedure in place as far as first and second rounds of recruitment were concerned, but not in third - It is admitted that petitioners were recruited when Institute was in Mysore and Commission Report clarifies unambiguously that all appointments that were made in Mysore were transparent and followed a procedure that was put in place for that purpose - A distinction sought to made between present cases and those dealt with by Mr. Justice V. Parthiban is that in present batch, employment of petitioners had been terminated at juncture when they approached this Court, whereas, appointments of petitioners in other batch had not yet been terminated when they approached court - As a consequence of my holding that impugned orders are not justified in law, petitioners are liable to be reinstated in service - Elapse of time in meanwhile was on various accounts and petitioners cannot be prejudiced by same - Petitions allowed.
ORDER :
Prayer: Writ Petitions filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying to Writ of certiorarified mandamus calling for records in the impugned order in F. No. 11-264/CICT/2014-15 dated 28.05.2014 issued by the 2nd respondent and the impugned charge memo in F. No. 11-264/CICT/2014-15 dated 09.03.2015 issued by the 3rd respondent and F. No. 11-264/CICT/2014-15 dated 31.03.2015 issued by the 2nd respondent and quash the same and consequently direct the 2nd respondent to pass orders to regularise the petitioners as permanent and regular employees.
1. Three petitioners before me have their background in linguistics and were selected for the posts of Junior Resource Person (petitioners in W.P. Nos. 12785 to 12787 of 2015) and the petitioner in W.P. No. 12788 of 2015 was recruited for the post of Data Imputer in the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore (hereinafter referred to as ‘CIIL’) joining service on 01.11.2007, 09.10.2007, 27.10.2007 and 13.08.2007 respectively.
2. The Central Institute of Classical Tamil (hereinafter referred to as ‘CICT’)/R2/Institute had been formed in the State of Tamil Nadu and the petitioners had been deputed to work therein from 19.05.2008 onwards. Their appointments were on contract basis for a period of one year, to be extended periodically. The petitioners have been in employment from 2008 till 31.03.2015 when the impugned orders have come to be passed terminating their employment.
3. The relevant sequence of dates and events are as follows:
(ii) Their appointments were extended periodically and there were no charges or any allegations made in regard to their services till the year 2015.
(iii) In 2015, there had been a demonstration by various employees in R2 Institute calling for the rectification of several defects in the functioning of the Institute and for the filling up of permanent posts as required.
(iv) According to the petitioners, there had been dissent within the organization for the last few years, based upon which, representations had come to be filed by the employees and this had caused a misunderstanding between the employees and the management.
(v) On 07.03.2015, a demonstration had been conducted by some employees in R2 Institute and the main demand was for the filling up of vacancies therein. The demonstration had taken place just outside the Chepauk Guest House in Chennai. It appears that the petitioners had been seen in the vicinity of the demonstration. They aver categorically that they were not involved in the conduct of the demonstration itself or in any of the events that were part of the demonstration, such as speeches or sloganeering.
(vi) Alleging their participation in the demonstration, charge memos dated 09.03.2015 had been issued to them. The petitioners, in response to the charge memos, tendered their explanation stating that they had not participated in any way in the protest and they were enroute to other destinations through the neighbourhood where the demonstration was taken place and hence, no adverse inference could be drawn in that regard.
(vii) A domestic enquiry had taken place, wherein the petitioners participated. The constitution of the enquiry team is itself objected to by the petitioners, since co-workers of the petitioners had been part of the team, which was highly irregular.
(viii) Despite a specific request for documents based upon which the allegations were made to be supplied to the petitioners, no such documents had been supplied at any point in time.
(ix) The expiry of the petitioners’ contract period coincided with the passing of the impugned order. The petitioners were held to have violated the terms of appointment as per
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