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State of Himachal Pradesh, Through the Secretary Rural Development to the Govt. of Himachal Pradesh, Shimla v. Ashwani Kumar and Ors.

Appeal(s) allowed
Court
Supreme Court of India
Decided
3 January 1996
Bench
K. Ramaswamy, G. B. Pattanaik
Result
Appeals allowed.

Headnote

Constitution of India, 1950:

Articles 226, 136-Daily wagers on muster roll--l'aidfromfunds pro-vided by Central Government project completed and closed due to non-avail-ability of funds-Services dispensed with-Writ Petition-High Court order-ing re-engagement <if the employees-On appeal held: no vested right is ere-ated on temporary employment-Non-availability of vacancies-Courts to adopt pragmatic approach-Regularisation/Creation of posts cannot be direcied--Service Law-Regularisation.

Headnote as published in the Digital Supreme Court Reports by the Supreme Court of India. Paragraph references point to the judgment below.

Judgment

'r Leave granted.

Heard Counsel on both sides.

The facts are that the respondent was engaged on daily wages on muster roll basis in Central Scheme and were paid out of the funds provided by the Central Government. It is stated that after the scheme was closed their services were dispensed with. When the respondents filed the writ petition in the High Court, the High Court gave interim direction dated 6th January, 1993 and di-rected them to be re-engaged else where, Pursuant to the interim direction the writ petition came to be disposed of on March 9, 1993. Thus this appeal by special leave.

It is seen that when the project is completed and closed due to non-availability of funds, consequently, the employees have to go along with the Closed project. The High Court was not right in giving the direction to regu-larise them or to continue them in other places. No vested right is created in temporary employment. Directions cannot be given to regularise their serv-ices in the absence of any existing vacancies nor directions be gi vcn to create posts by the State to a non-existent establishment. The Court would adopt pragmatic approach in giving directions. The directions would amount to cre-ating of posts and continuing them in spite of non-availability of the work. We are of considered view that the directions issued by the High Court are abso-lutely illegal warranting our interference. The order of the High Court is set side.

The appeal is allowed. No Costs.

Case details

Arising from

CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION: Civil Appeal No. 1538of1996. From the Judgment and Order daled 9.3.93 of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in C. WP. No. 18 of 1992.

Appearances

B. Dutta and Naresh K. Sharma for the appellant.

Devendra Singh for the Respondents.

Source: Supreme Court of India, Digital Supreme Court Reports, via the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open dataset (CC BY 4.0). Text was extracted from the official PDF and may contain conversion errors. Check the official PDF before relying on it.