SHAMIM AHMAD Vs. STATE OF J&K

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE Petitioners were appointed on stop -gap arrangement as Laboratory Assistant/Library Assistant and Junior Assistant against the available vacancies existing in different Government Primary/Middle/Higher Secondary Schools in District Rajouri by the Chief Education Officer till the posts are regularized/filled by Competent Authority. These appointments were made in the year 1999 vide orders dated 27 -5 -1999. Later on these appointments were ordered to be kept in abeyance by the Government vide its order No. 552 -GAD of 2000 dated 17 -5 -2000. Aggrieved by the aforesaid order, the petitioners preferred this Petition seeking issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent authorities to allow them to resume their duties and regularize services of the petitioners in view of the Policy decisions of the Government. Further directions were sought by the petitioners, for the release of their salary for the period they actually worked, by the respondents.

(2.) THE stand taken by the respondents in their demurrer is that the petitioners were working on stop -gap -arrangement till the posts were filled up by Service Selection Board. The appointments were made by the then Chief Education Officer. That the class IV employees have been appointed as per the Government instructions and paid Rs. 1,200 per month. The present writ petition pertains to the class III category, which is entirely different from class IV employees of the Education Department and these two cadres are not synonymous to each other. That the appointments in stop -gap -arrangement does not vest any right on the petitioners to hold a post or seek regularization. It is not disputed that the appointments of the petitioners on stop -gap -arrangement were without any advertisement or following the procedure for selection to the posts(s). An appointment in stop -gap -arrangement is only a temporary appointment, pending regular recruitment without conferring any right of regularization of services. Such appointees, the petitioners in this case, have no right to hold the posts to which they were appointed as such. Such employees have no right of regularization even if they hold the posts for more than one year or for a longer period. Government order dated 17 -5 -2000, by which the appointments of the petitioners, along with others, were kept in abeyance with retrospective effect, for facility of reference, reads as under : "Government of Jammu and Kashmir General Administration Department. Subject : Illegal appointments in District Rajouri. Reference : Letter No. Edu/I/Apptt/36/2000, dated 4.4.2000 for Education Department. Government Order No. : 552 -GAD of 2000 Dated : 17 -5 -2000. In partial modification of Government Order No : 307 -GAD of 2000 dated 13.3.2000, it is hereby ordered that 89 (Eighty nine) appointment orders in respect of the various categories, as indicated below, issued by the Chief Education Officer, Rajouri, without observing the selection procedure as set out in the rules i. e. without reference of these posts to the Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board are hereby kept in abeyance, with retrospective effect: - Laboratory Assistant 06 Library Assistant 25 Junior Assistant 04 By order of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. (Sd.)........................... Under Secretary to Government General Administration Department. No. GAD (MTG)RB -IV/99/71 dated : 17 -05 -2000."

(3.) THIS order clearly enumerates that the orders of appointments were issued by the Chief Education Officer, Rajouri, without observing the selection procedure and referring the posts to the Jammu and Kashmir Service Selection Board. It is further borne out from the order that the stop -gap -arrangements of the petitioners ceases to exist by the aforesaid Government Ord er from 17 -5 -2000. They are now no longer in service on account of stop -gap -arrangement in the Education Department. An adhoc or a stop -gap -arrangement appointee cannot remain in respective post to the detrimental of the regular selectee.