The central legal point established in the judgment is that appointments in public employment must be made strictly in accordance with the rules in force, and irregular and illegal appointments cannot be regularized. The constitutional mandate of equal opportunity in public employment must be upheld.

ORDER :

1. The rejection of the claim of the writ petitioner for grant of regularisation and permanent absorption is under challenge in the present writ petition.

2. The petitioners were engaged as daily wage employees as Sanitary Workers in the Primary Health Centres.

3. The learned counsel for the petitioner mainly contended that the petitioners are continuing as daily wage employees for several years and this Court has passed an order to grant the benefit of regularisation. In respect of the orders passed by this Court on 29.11.2016 in W.P.No.41780 of 2016, the respondents have not considered the case of the writ petitioner for grant of permanent absorption and passed an order of rejection in G.O.(D).No.792, Health and Family Welfare (AB1) Department dated 05.04.2017. The petitioners have stated that similarly placed persons were regularised in the sanctioned post of higher scale of pay. When the benefit was extended to several other similarly placed persons, the petitioners cannot be discriminated and therefore, the order impugned is liable to be set aside.

4. The learned Additional Government Pleader appearing on behalf of the respondents made a submission that regularisation and permanent absorption cannot be granted in violation of the Rules in force. The case of the petitioners were considered pursuant to the directions issued by this Court and the Government decided to permit the Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine to fix minimum wages for the Sanitary Workers. However, the benefit of regularisation or permanent absorption cannot be granted.

5. The order of rejection in G.O.(D).No.792, Health and Family Welfare (AB1) Department dated 05.04.2017 states that the daily wage employees are eligible to get the wages as fixed by the District Collector applicable to the said category. However, the claim for regularisation was not considered.

6. This Court is of the considered opinion that the petitioners were not appointed in accordance with the Recruitment Rules in force. They were engaged as daily wage Sanitary workers and their pay alone is protected with reference to the Minimum Wages Act and wages are to be settled as per the fixation done by the district collector under the provisions of the Minimum Wages Act. The benefit of wages alone has been considered by the Government.

7. Beyond the Government orders, the principles settled for appointment, regularization and permanent absorption by the Constitution Bench of the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India in the case of The Secretary, State of Karnataka and others vs. Umadevi and others reported in [(2006) 4 Supreme Court Cases 1] are to be considered. All appointments are to be made strictly in accordance with the rules in force. Equal opportunity in public employment is the constitutional mandate. The equality clause enunciated in the Constitution at no circumstances be diluted, infringing the Fundamental Rights of all other citizen, who all are aspiring to secure public employment through open competitive process. The Hon’ble Supreme Court has emphatically held that irregular and illegal appointments cannot be regularized nor persons, who were appointed through backdoor cannot seek the benefit of regular appointment, regularization or permanent absorption. In the event of regularizing the irregular and illegal appointments, or appointing persons in violation of the recruitment rules, the same would result in infringement of the Constitutional rights of lakh and lakh of youth of this great Nation and thus, the unconstitutionality in the matter of public employments must be stopped forthwith. In the context of the principles laid down by the Constitution Bench, in paragraph 53 of the judgment in Uma Devi’s case (cited supra), the Constitution Bench granted permission to complete the process in respect of the pending proposals during the relevant point of time. However, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India has never allowed that the irregularity in this regard must be