JUDGMENT :

Sudhanshu Dhulia, J.

This writ petition was filed by the petitioner, who is a lady Ayurvedic doctor in State Medical and Health Services, Uttarakhand. Her appointment though is not regular, but is on contractual basis, which is continuing since 2009. The contract which was for one year initially, has been periodically renewed or extended. The last extension was upto 28.02.2019 vide order dated 23.03.2018. As the petitioner was in the family way, she applied for her maternity leave, which was sanctioned to her from 08.04.2017 to 04.10.2017. After availing her maternity leave, the petitioner, however, did not join her service, but applied for Child Care Leave (from hereinafter referred to as the CCL). Her argument before the authorities was that in view of a decision of a Division Bench of this Court, in Writ Petition (S/B) No. 99 of 2015 (Dr. Shanti Mehra Vs. State of Uttarakhand, 2017 (1) U.D., 191), even a contractual employee is entitled for CCL for a period of 730 days. Her application, all the same, was rejected by an order dated 24.05.2019 passed by the Director, Ayurvedic and Unani Services, where the reasons given while denying CCL to the petitioner are that the pet