The Puducherry government has got a huge relief from a financial liability of Rs.81 crore, as a Division Bench of the Madras High Court quashed an order of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Madras Bench which directed the government to regularise the services of 90-odd lecturers with “retrospective” effect.
If their services were regularised with “retrospective” effect as per the order of CAT, the government would have had to fork out Rs.50 lakh to each lecturer.
The CAT, Madras Bench, on December 14, 2011 ordered the Puducherry government to regularise their services with effect from the date of initial engagement.
Order quashedQuashing the CAT order, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court comprising Justices Satish K. Agnihotri and K.K. Sasidharan said many of the individuals were not in possession of essential qualifications for appointment as per the recruitment rules and University Grants Commission(UGC) regulations, as on the date of their initial engagement. The tribunal ignored the fundamental aspect that they failed to satisfy the eligibility criteria at that point of time.
These lecturers were initially engaged on hourly-paid basis to handle the extra work of regular lecturers and that too, for 15 hours per week. They were paid honorarium. Such engagement came to an end by efflux of time and thereafter, they were re-engaged on the very same terms and condition, making it clear that it was only a stop-gap arrangement till regular selection was made. Later, they were given consolidated pay.
Two ad-hoc lecturers obtained favourable orders from the court directing the government to regularise their services retrospectively as one-time measure. Following that, other lecturers on hourly-paid basis preferred the legal battle.
In 2006, the Madras High Court directed the government to regularise their services “prospectively” as a one-time measure.
In 2009, with a view to giving a quietus to the issue and on humanitarian consideration, the government issued orders regularising their services prospectively.
At present, they are working as Assistant Professors. Got inspiration from the order, they approached the CAT for retrospective regularisation.
The CAT, without making an attempt to distinguish between the cases of ad-hoc and hourly-paid lecturers, directed the government to regularise the services of hourly-paid lecturers with effect from the date of initial engagement.
Order challengedThe government now challenged the order passed by the CAT directing such retrospective regularisation on several grounds including the financial implication, as it would involve payment of Rs.81 crore as differential wages.
Two lecturers suppressed the earlier orders passed by the CAT, the Supreme Court and obtained orders for retrospective regularisation by playing fraud on court.
Terming the order of CAT as legally unsustainable, the Division Bench said the hourly-paid lecturers were not entitled to retrospective regularisation.
“This batch of cases is a classical example of how back-door appointments are made in the Union Territory of Puducherry without reference to statutory authorities like Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and UGC. The regularisation of services made by the government at one point of time made others cite it as an example and to claim similar benefits to them,” the judges said. Going into appointments of hourly paid lecturers, the court said they were paid based on minimum qualification of Master’s degree in the concerned discipline.
Walk-in-interview“The available records clearly show that the selection committee adopted the procedure of ‘walk-in’ interview. There was no need for making application in advance. Anybody can walk in for selection. The admitted case, therefore, is that appointments were not made according to recruitment rules,” the Bench said.
