127 IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Date of Decision: 24.09.2025 Harvinder Singh …Petitioner Vs.

State of Punjab and Others …Respondents Coram : Hon’ble Mr. Justice N.S.Shekhawat Present : Mr.Hitesh Sood, Advocate for the petitioner.

Mr. Charanpreet Singh, AAG, Punjab.

Mr. Anupam Singla, Advocate for respondents No.5 &6.

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N.S.Shekhawat J.

1. The petitioner has filed the present writ petition under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India with a prayer to issue a Writ in the nature of Certiorari for quashing the memo No.SAMGRA/2022/admin (376167) 249598 dated 16.09.2022 (Annexure P-5) passed by Director General School Education, Punjab-cum-State Project Director, SAMARA Shiksha Abhiyan, Punjab-respondent No.5. A further prayer has been made to direct the respondents to extend the contract of the petitioner up to the age of 65 years as had been done in the cases of other employees.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner contends that in the year 2011, the respondents issued an advertisement and the candidates were called for walk-in-interview on 02.07.2011 for various posts including the post of Legal Assistants. In the advertisement it was clearly mentioned that the age for Deputy Director, Planning should not be more than 65 years and for the remaining candidates, the age should be according to the instructions of the Punjab Government. 20 posts of Legal Assistant were advertised for all the districts in Punjab, for which a monthly salary of Rs.15,000/- was to be given. The petitioner also applied for the same and was declared successful. Thereafter, on 18.10.2011, the petitioner was offered job on contract basis (Annexure P-2) in Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Authority, Punjab. Thereafter, the contract of the petitioner was renewed from time to time after evaluating his performance. Finally, the contract of all the employees in SAMAGRA Shiksha Abhiyan, Punjab was extended w.e.f 01.04.2025 to 31.03.2026 as per the conditions and places mentioned in their original appointment letters and the name of the petitioner was also mentioned in the said communication/contract (Annexure P-3). Learned counsel further contends that the contract of the petitioner was extended up to 31.03.2026, but the petitioner was asked to submit his pension documents prior to the date of his superannuation i.e. on 30.09.2025 and now, the petitioner is being relieved on 24.09.2025. Now, the petitioner had found that the respondents had fixed the age of contractual employees up to the age of 58 years, whereas, they had no such authority to frame rules by themselves. Apart from that, Department of Finance had also issued an advertisement for the post of Senior Law Officer on contract for a sum of Rs.60,000/- per month and it was specifically mentioned in the advertisement (Annexure P-6) that the age of the candidate must be between 58 to 62 years. Even for the other posts i.e. OSD (Litigation), the age of candidate has been fixed less than 65 years, however, for recruitment to such posts, a candidate must be retired PCS (Judicial), PCS (Executive) or Member of Punjab State Legal Services or District Attorney, who had the experience of minimum 10 years could apply. He further contends that the age for the said post was more than 58 years and less than 65 years. Consequently, the respondents had created two classes of employees i.e. one recruits until age of 65 and other set of employees were forced to retire at the age of 58 years for performing the same nature of job.

3. On the other hand learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondents have opposed the submissions made by learned counsel for the petitioner on the ground that the petitioner was appointed only on the contractual basis as per the contract (Annexure P-2). It was specifically mentioned that the contract was initially for a period of one year and it could be renewed every year depending upon his conduct and work. Even, his services were liable to be terminated by the department a