SHACHI GAHOI Vs. INDIAN AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS RESEARCH INSTITUTE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By this writ petition, Petitioner seeks a writ of certiorari quashing the impugned order dtd. 25/7/2019 whereby services of the Petitioner, while working on temporary basis as Research Associate with the Respondents/Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (hereinafter referred to as 'ICAR-IASRI') were terminated.

(2.) Narrative of facts captured in the writ petition is that Petitioner having a Ph.D. degree in Bioinformatics was appointed as Research Associate in ICAR-IASRI in a project called 'Consortium Research Platform on Genomics' for the period ending 31/3/2017. The appointment was on a contractual basis for the said period or termination of the project, whichever was earlier. Appointment letter dtd. 29/10/2016 was issued to the Petitioner which stipulated the terms and conditions of service including nature of admissible leaves which included casual leave, restricted holidays as per Government of India/ICAR Rules as applicable from time to time, maternity leave and compensatory leave in lieu of duty performed on holidays.

(3.) Clause 8 of the appointment letter permitted the Respondents to terminate the Research Associateship, with or without notice, at any time, if the Research Associate was found to be negligent in his or her work or in case of unbecoming conduct. Petitioner avers that she was sincerely and diligently performing her duties which is evident from communications of the Respondents between January, 2019 to June, 2019 and for two and a half years that she worked with the Respondents, she shouldered several important responsibilities and published five research papers in reputed International journals. On account of her good performance in the project, she was granted third extension from 1/4/2019 to 31/3/2020.