Regularization of service requires sanctioned vacancies, and proposals do not confer enforceable rights. Voluntary waivers significantly impact employee claims and equitable principles cannot override constitutional mandates.

ORDER :

This Writ Petition assails the order dated 13.12.2024 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) in O.A.No.265 of 2016, whereby the Tribunal allowed the said application and directed the petitioners to regularise the services of the second respondent with effect from 16.12.2003, together with all consequential and attendant benefits, including pay fixation under successive Pay Commissions, grant of Modified Assured Career Progression (MACP) benefits, payment of interest at the rate of 9% per annum in the event of delay, and costs quantified at Rs.25,000/-.

2. Heard Sri K.L.N.Raghavendra Reddy, learned counsel for the petitioners and Smt. P.Kalyani, learned counsel for respondent No.2 and perused the record.

3. The brief facts of the case are that the 2^nd respondent was initially engaged as a casual Make-up Assistant at Doordarshan Kendra, Hyderabad, in the year 1985. Subsequently, pursuant to directions issued by the Courts, a Scheme for Regularisation of Casual Artists was introduced in the year 1992 (for short ‘the scheme’). As per the said scheme, regularisation was permissible only against a duly sanctioned vacancy and subject to the casual artist having rendered not less than 120 days of work in a calendar year.

4. The 2nd respondent was found to be otherwise eligible under the said scheme. However, at the relevant point of time, no sanctioned vacancy in the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category for the post of Make-up Assistant was available at Doordarshan Kendra, Hyderabad.

5. In the year 2003, the petitioners initiated a proposal to shift a sanctioned vacancy from Doordarshan Kendra, Lucknow, to Hyderabad for the purpose of considering the case of the second respondent. The said vacancy, however, was subject matter of a pending writ petition in W.P.No.2875 of 2001 filed by another casual employee before the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court, which came to be disposed of only in December, 2014.

6. Thereafter, in a special drive undertaken in the year 2015, the 2^nd respondent was regularised prospectively with effect from 03.06.2015 along with 232 other similarly placed casual artists. Aggrieved by the non-grant of retrospective regularisation from the year 2003 or an earlier date, the 2nd respondent approached the Tribunal by filing O.A.No.265 of 2016.

7. The Tribunal, by the impugned order dated 13.12.2024, allowed the application and issued directions for retrospective regularisation with consequential benefits.

8. Questioning the legality and correctness of the said order, the petitioners have preferred the present writ petition.

9. The learned counsel for the petitioners has contended:

i. That the directions issued by the Tribunal for retrospective regularisation are contrary to the law laid down by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Secretary, State of Karnataka and others v. Umadevi and others, (2006) 4 SCC 1 wherein it has been categorically held that regularisation cannot be ordered dehors the constitutional scheme of recruitment and in the absence of a duly sanctioned vacancy.

ii. That the Scheme itself mandated that regularisation could be effected only against an existing sanctioned vacancy. According to the petitioners, no sanctioned vacancy in the OBC category for the post of Make-up Assistant was available at Doordarshan Kendra, Hyderabad, till the year 2