DALJIT SINGH MINHAS Vs. STATE OF PUNJAB

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE constitutional validity of the Punjab Government Notification (annexure P. 3 dated the 3rd May, 1977) authorising the regularisation of the services of teachers already employed on an ad hoc basis if they satisfy the conditions specified therein is the subject--matter of challenge in this set of writ petitions.

(2.) THE facts are not in dispute and may be examined with reference to those in Civil Writ No. 1553 of 1977 Daljit Singh v. State of Punjab. it appears that in the year 1974, the respondent--State of Punjab was faced with the problem of recruiting thousands of teachers in its Department of Education. Included therein were 1797 posts of Social Study Matters/mistresses, recruitment whereof was governed by the Punjab Education Service Class II. School Cadre rules, 1955. The respondent--State decided to fill these posts by way of direct recruitment under the rules aforesaid and to effectuate that purpose, a Departmental Recruitment Committee consisting of one Chairman and two members was constituted. The said Committee issued an advertisement in the daily Tribune dated the 16th of July, 1974 (annexure P. 1) inviting applications from eligible persons to the said post and the last date for the receipt of these applications was 8th Aug. 1974. This date, however was after extended upto December, 1974. The 443 petitioners applied for appointment along with thousands of their candidates who were all interviewed by the said Committee and the process was not finalised till the end of the year 1976. The petitioners were selected by the Recruitment Committee and their names were recommended to the Director of Public Instruction, Punjab for appointment as Social Study Masters in the month of Jan. 1977. Identical letters in the form of annexure P. 2 were issued to them requesting them to correspond with the concerned officer for necessary action for the purposes of their appointments. However, no appointment letters were issued in the petitioners' favor and before this could be done, the impugned notification, annexure P. 3, dated the 3rd May, 1977 was issued by the respondent--State. Thereby all the posts (including those against which the petitioners were to be appointed) which had come to be occupied by ad hoc employees were excluded from the purview of both the Subordinate Services Selection Board and the Departmental Recruitment Committee as the case may be. Instead it was directed that the services of all those ad hoc employees holding these posts who satisfied the conditions specified in the said notification were to be regularised after screening each case by the appointing authority, namely, the Director of Public Instructions. It was further directed that the process of regularisation of these cases should be completed within a maximum period of 3 months.

(3.) IT is the case that the denial of appointment to the petitioners and the notification, annexure P. 3 is violative of Art. 16 of the Constitution. Further, that the notification aforesaid is contrary to the statutory rules and is this liable to be quashed on that ground as well.