NOORJIHAN A. Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The writ petitions pending before the learned Single Judge, were posted before us specifically on our orders, along with the writ appeals. The issue agitated in all these cases is whether the appellants and the petitioners in the writ petition, who were appointed on contract, could be continued till the Scheme under which the appointments were made comes to an end. Seven of the writ appeals [W.A.Nos.1602/2018, 1417/2019, 2487/2019, 2190/2019, 2191/2019, 2547/2019 and 158/2020] are from judgments in writ petitions and three others [W.A.Nos.1570/2018, 1139/2018 and 1621/2018] from orders allowing the writ petitioners to apply fresh in the selection proposed, declining the prayer for continuance. One appeal [W.A.No.2197/2018] is from the vacation of the interim order, as against one of the respondents who moved to vacate the interim order granted in W.P.(C) No.1633/2019.

(2.) W.P.(C) No.1633/2019 is still pending and the apprehension expressed by the respondent, in the appeal from the order vacating the earlier interim order in the writ petition, is that service is not completed on all the respondents in the writ petition. In fact the writ petition was filed with just the State in the party array and later additional respondents 4 to 344 were impleaded, who are the various local bodies who made the contractual appointments in implementation of the Scheme. Service is not yet completed and Counter Affidavits are also not filed by many of the respondents. We looked into the files of the writ petition and found that many of the respondents still remain to be served and the apprehension expressed by the respondent therein, is genuine and justified.

(3.) The respondents at the outset submitted that first of the judgments passed in one earlier writ petition by similarly situated contract employees on identical issue was taken up in appeal and the same confirmed in W.A.No.243/2019 by judgment dated 15.03.2019. It is the decision in W.P(C) No.13660/2018, which was confirmed in appeal, that the learned Single Judge has followed in most of the judgments impugned in the instant appeals.