Long-term contractual engagement in public employment does not confer a right to regularisation, and claims for pay parity require demonstration of identical duties and service conditions, which a court cannot grant solely based on the duration of service.

1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution seeks, in substance, two sets of directions: first, a mandamus to regularise or absorb the Petitioners, who were engaged as fixed tenure Field Executives pursuant to Advertisement No. 3/2008 (R&P); and second, a mandamus directing parity in salary, promotional avenues and allied service benefits with regular executives of the Respondent Corporation, particularly Graduate Trainees (E-1 level) recruited in the same period.

2. The relevant facts are largely undisputed. In 2008, the Respondent issued an advertisement for recruitment of 250 fixed tenure Field Executives. The engagement was on consolidated remuneration (Onshore: INR 45,000/-; Offshore and North-East: INR 48,000/-), with the advertisement and the offer terms clarifying that the engagement was contractual, fixed-term, and not a route to absorption in the regular cadre.

3. In the same year, the Respondent issued a separate advertisement for recruitment of Graduate Trainees, described as the entry-level route to the regular executive cadre, carrying a basic pay of INR 24,900/- (with dearness allowance and other admissible components as per the applicable structure).

4. The Petitioners were selected as tenure-based Field Executives through an All-India written test followed by interview, and were issued appointment letters on the terms and conditions extracted in the record. Those terms leave little room for ambiguity. The tenure was “for a maximum period of four years”, coming to an end automatically on completion of the period, without further notice, subject to the possibility of fresh engagement depending on requirement and satisfactory performance. Pertinently, the offer letter required the appointee to sign an undertaking that “engagement on tenure basis will not entitle” the appointee “for any regular employment” and that “no claim” seeking regularisation based on tenure engagement would be preferred. The remuneration was consolidated, with a notional “tenure pay” indicated for limited reimbursement purposes, and the letter specified, with equal clarity, that no benefits beyond those enumerated would be admissible.

5. Mr. Manoj Mishra, counsel for the Petitioners, makes the following submissions in support of the Petitioner’s prayer:

5.1. Although the initial engagement was described as tenure-based and non-absorbable, in practice, it acquired the attributes of regular service. The Petitioners were appointed in 2009 pursuant to Advertisement No. 3/2008 (R&P), through a national level written examination followed by interview, and that their tenure was thereafter extended repeatedly over an uninterrupted period of about 16 years, without any interim protection from a court. Such long and continuous engagement shows that the work was neither transient nor genuinely project specific. The Petitioners were deployed at established operational units of the Respondent, including drilling rigs, production installations, refineries and plants, and were utilised as substitutes or relievers for regular executives, thereby discharging duties broadly comparable to those performed by Graduate Trainees in the regular executive cadre.

5.2. On this footing, the Respondent cannot maintain a rigid segregation between “tenure” and “regular” personnel when, on the ground, the Petitioners were deployed for core and continuing functions. The designation “Field Executive” was us