Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Apr 25: The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) rejected the plea of employees seeking regularization of their services with effect from completion of 7 years service against available vacancy.
The division bench of D S Mahra (J) and Prasant Kumar (A) has held that since there is no time prescribed to the empowered committee to consider the case of regularization and as such the regularization shall take effect from the date of regularization itself.
The employees working in Skill Development Department Kashmir contended that they were appointed in 2006 against available vacancies as Jr. Instructors were regularized in 2017 and 2018 while in fact they were supposed to be regularized from the year they had completed seven years of service as such their regularization is illegal and arbitrary in terms of judgment passed by the High Court.
The Government counsel submitted that in terms of law, 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 analyzing observed that the appointees shall be regularized subject to the fulfillment of the conditions provided under Section 5 of J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act 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 and 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”, CAT said.
The Tribunal further said that the Act provides for two categories and 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 and 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. Referring to the Section 10(2A) court said, it provides that the empowered committee shall not entertain any case for regularization after such a cutoff 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”, reads the judgment.
The Tribunal concluded that the case of the applicants fall 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.
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