IN THE HIGH COURT OF JAMMU & KASHMIR AND

LADAKH AT SRINAGAR

Reserved on: 09.12.2025 Pronounced on:19.12.2025 Uploaded on: 19.12.2025

Whether the operative part or full judgment is pronounced: Full

WP(C) No.175/2020

GHULAM RASOOL BHAT & ORS.

...PETITIONERS/APPELLANT(S)

Through: - Mr. Nissar Ahmad Bhat, Advocate.

Vs.

GOVERNMENT OF J&K & ORS. …RESPONDENT(S)

Through: - Mr. Faheem Nisar Shah, GA.

CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJAY DHAR, JUDGE

JUDGMENT

1) The petitioners, through the medium of present petition, have sought a direction upon the respondents to give effect to their regularization order dated 24.11.2017 on the analogy of similarly situated persons. A further direction commanding the respondents to give effect to the regularization order of the petitioners strictly in terms of the policy in vogue in the respondent Corporation by regularizing them after completing two years of service, has

also been sought.

2) As per case of the petitioners, petitioner No.1 was engaged as Shift Engineer on consolidated basis at

Pahalgam MHP in J&K Power Development Corporation in terms of order No.PDC/30 of 2005 dated 08.06.2005. Petitioner No.2 was engaged as Shift Engineer on consolidated basis at Pahalgam MHP in terms of order No.PDC/05 of 2005 dated 27.06.2005. Similarly, petitioners No.3 and 4 came to be engaged as Shift Engineers on consolidated basis in terms of order No.PDC/31 of 2005 dated 08.06.2005. The services of the petitioners on consolidated basis were extended from time to time by the respondent Corporation.

3) It is being pleaded that as per the policy in vogue in the respondent Corporation, the petitioners were to be regularized after successful completion of two years of service. However, this benefit was not given to them. A representation was made by the petitioners to the respondents which was forwarded to respondent No.2 in terms of his communication dated19.03.2010 but no action was taken on the said representation. It has been contended that the services of consolidated/contractual/daily rated employees, who were engaged after the petitioners, came to be regularized by the respondent Corporation leaving out the petitioners and it was only in the year 2013 that the respondent Corporation initiated the process of regularization of the petitioners in its 68th Annual meeting held on 22.02.2013. Thereafter a notification was issued in the newspaper in which the petitioners were figuring at serial Nos.4, 5, 6 and 7 and it was notified that the petitioners have completed seven years of service on ad hoc consolidated/contractual / basis as on 31.12.2012.

The objections were invited against the said list.

4) It has been submitted that the In-house Committee, after scrutinizing the records and other credentials of the petitioners, recommended their case for regularization and forwarded the same to the Board of Directors of the respondent Corporation in the year 2014 itself. The case of the petitioners for regularization of their services remained pending and in the meantime, in terms of order No.PDC/08 of 2016 dated 31.08.2016, the services of eight more candidates came to be regularized after completion of two years of continuous service.

5) According to the petitioners, their case for regularization of service was kept pending for unknown reasons and ultimately, the respondent Corporation in terms of order No.PDC/CJ/264 of 2017 dated 24.11.2017 accorded sanction to the regularization of their services. It has been contended that that the petitioners had completed two years of continuous service in the respondent Corporation in June, 2007 and they had completed seven years continuous service in the year 2012 but they were regularized only on 24.11.2017 with prospective effect by denying the effect of regularization to their services from the date of completion of two/seven years of continuous service. In this regard, the petitioners are stated to have made a representation in the office of respondent No.2, who, in terms of communication d