The Central Administrative Tribunal, Srinagar Bench while dismissing an O.A filed by the employees seeking regularisation in services immediately after completing Seven years of service in terms of J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 has held that since there is no time prescribed to the empowered committee to consider the case of regularisation and as such The regularisation shall take effect from the date of regularisation itself.
The Applicants before the Tribunal had contended that they were appointed in the year 2006 but were regularised in the year 2017 & 2018 while in fact they were supposed to be regularised from the year they had completed seven years of service in terms of J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010. The applicants submitted that such regularisation was illegal and arbitrary. The applicants relied upon the Judgment of Hon’ble J&K High Court in “Rabia Shah vs State of J&K reported in [2017 (1) JKJ 490]”.
The state of the other hand submitted that in terms of Section 5 of said Act regularization of the eligible ad hoc, contractual or consolidated appointees shall have effect only from the date of such regularization irrespective of the fact that when the employees have completed more than 07 years of service.
The tribunal while analysis the issue in light of Section 5 and Section 10 of the said Act observed that the combined reading these two provisions provides that the appointees shall be regularized subject to the fulfillment of the conditions provided under Section 5 and to give effect to such regularization the procedure has been provided under Section 10 of the said Act. It is clear from the above two provisions of the said Act that the regularization shall be made effective only after the appointed date i.e. the date on which the Act came into force i.e. 28.4.2010. Section 10(2) of the Special Provisions Act, 2010 provides that the empowered committee shall scrutinize and verify the cases of ad hoc, contractual or consolidated employees eligible for regularization under Section 5 of the Act immediately after the appointed date which will be referred to empowered committee by the concerned department upto 31.1.2011. In other words the Section 10(2) is applicable to those cases/employees who have completed 07 years or more on appointed date and are fulfilling all the requirements of Section 5. After scrutinizing and verifying the cases of employees falling under Section 10(2) the administrative department shall issue order of regularization under Section 10(5) of the Act.
The Tribunal further observed that The Act provides for two categories/types of cases to be scrutinized and verified by the empowered committee. The first category of employees to be scrutinized by the empowered committee are those appointees/employees mentioned under first proviso to Section 5 of the Act, who had completed 07 years or more on the appointed date i.e. 28.4.2010, the date on which the Act came into force. Those cases are to be referred under Section 10(2) of the Act by the administrative department immediately and not later than 31.1.2011 to the empowered committee for scrutiny and verification. Section10(2A) provides that the empowered committee shall not entertain any case for regularization after such cut off date. Second category/type of cases are referred in second proviso to Section 5 of the Act which provides that any ad hoc, contractual or consolidated appointees who have not completed 07 years on the appointed day shall continue as such till they complete 07 years and their cases shall be scrutinized and verified by the empowered committee after completion of 07 years for regularization. There is no period within which the empowered committee is to scrutinize and verify the second category of employees.
The Tribunal held that case of the applicants falls under second proviso to Section 5 of the J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010. Since there is no time prescribed to consider their cases by the empowered committee, the claim of the applicants for regularization was considered by the empowered committee in the year 2017 and 2018 I.e. after completion of 07 years. The regularization order is as per provisions of Special Provisions Act, 2010. Accordingly the OA was dismissed.
