Suresh Kumar Singh Chauhan and Others vs State of U.P. and Another

M. Katju, J.—Heard learned Counsel for the Petitioners and learned standing counsel.

The Petitioners have challenged the impugned order dated 13.3.2002 Annexure-1 to the writ petition and prayed for a mandamus directing the Respondents to regularise their services on the post of Assistant Engineer in Meerut Development Authority under Rule 20A as amended by U.P. Development Authority Centralised Service (Seventh Amendment) Rules, 2001. This case has a chequered history as mentioned in the writ petition but it is not necessary to go into the same as the petition can be disposed of on a short point. The Petitioners were appointed on various dates as Assistant Engineers in Meerut Development Authority. These appointment dates are from 1.10.1988 to 1.2.1991 vide paragraph 6 to the writ petition and Annexure-6 to the writ petition. Thus, all the Petitioners were appointed before 29.6.1991.

Rule 20A of the U.P. Development Authority Centralised Service (Third Amendment) Rules, 1997, states as follows:

Rule 20A (2). In the Uttar Pradesh Development Authority (Centralised) Service Rules, 1985, after Rule 20 the following rule shall be inserted:

20A (1) Regularisation of ad hoc appointment.-Any person who:

(i) was directly appointed on ad hoc basis before October 1, 1986 and is continuing in service as such on the date of commencement of these rules.

(ii) possessed requisite qualification prescribed under Rule 14 for regular appointment at the time of such ad hoc appointment; and (iii) has completed or as the case may be after he has completed three years continuous service shall be considered for appointment in permanent or temporary vacancy as may be available on the basis of his service record and suitability before any regular appointment is made in such vacancy in accordance with the provisions contained in these rule.

(2) In making regular appointment under these rules reservations for the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and other categories shall be made in accordance with the order of Government in force at the time of recruitment.

(3) For the purpose of Sub-rule (1) Government shall constitute a selection committee and consultation with the commission shall not be necessary.

(4) The appointing authority shall prepare an Eligibility list of the candidates, arrange in order of seniority as determined from the date of order of their ad hoc appointment and if two or more persons are appointed together from the order in which these names are arranged in the said appointment order. The list shall be placed before the selection committee along with their character rolls, and such other service records pertaining to them as may be considered necessary to judge their suitability.

(5) The selection committee shall consider the cases of candidates on the basis of their records referred to in Sub-rule (4).

(6) The selection committee shall prepare a list of selected candidates, the names in the list being arranged in order of seniority and forward it to the Government.

(7) The State Government shall subject to the provision of Sub-rule (2) of this rule make appointments from the list prepared under Sub-rule (6) of these rules in order in which their names stands in the list."

The aforesaid rule was amended by U.P. Development Authority Centralised Service (Seventh Amendment) Rules, 2001 vide Annexure-24 to the writ petition. This amendment states as follows:

Amendment of Rule 20A.-In the Uttar Pradesh Development Authority Centralised Service Rules, 1985, for Sub-rule (1) of Rule 20A the following sub-rule shall be substituted, namely:

20A. (1) was directly appointed on ad hoc basis on or before June 29, 1991 and is continuing in service as such on the date of commencement of these rules.

There is no dispute that the Petitioners were possessing the requisite qualification prescribed under Rule 14 for regular appointment at the time of their initial appointment. Hence, in our opinion, they should have been considered for regularisation by the Selection Committee to be constituted by the State Government under Rule 3 of the Third Amendment Rules (copy of which is Annexure-5 of the petition).

However, it seems that by the impugned order Annexure-1 to the writ petition dated 13.3.2002, the Respondents have refused to consider the Petitioners for regularisation on the ground that they are not ad hoc appointees. In our opinion, this observation in the impugned order is clearly wrong. Merely because the Petitioners were appointed initially on daily wage/contract basis, it does not mean that they are not ad hoc appointees. The word ad hoc in Latin means "for a particular purpose" (See Webster''s and Oxford Dictionary).

As stated in paragraph 2 of the petition, the Petitioners were appointed because the Meerut Development Authority was short of staff in the year 1984 upto 1991 and there was need of staff in view of large-scale construction activities of the development authority. Hence, the Petitioner''s appointments were certainly on ad hoc basis as they were for a particular purpose (for the construction work for which there was shortage of staff). Moreover, Annexure-23 of the writ petition is the Government Order dated 19.4.2001, which states that Junior Engineers should be treated as ad hoc appointees. In our opinion, the same principle should also apply to the Assistant Engineers. Hence, we quash the impugned order dated 13.3.2002 and declare that Petitioners were ad hoc employees of the Meerut Development Authority.

In view of the above, the Petitioners are entitled to be considered for regularisation under Rule 20A of the said Rules as amended because there is no doubt that they were all appointed prior to 29.6.1991 which is the new cut of date under the Seventh Amendment Rules, 2001.

We, therefore, direct the State Government to immediately constitute the Selection Committee referred to in Sub-rule (3) of Rule 20A as introduced by the Third Amendment Rules, copy of which is Annexure-5 to the writ petition. The appointing authority shall prepare the eligibility list referred to in Sub-rule (4) forthwith and shall send it to the Selection Committee set up by the Government for this purpose and thereafter the procedure referred to in Third Amendment Rules must be completed very expeditiously.

The petition is disposed of accordingly.