Chandigarh: In a major setback to hundreds of contractual employees serving with it for many decades now, the Chandigarh administration has reiterated its firm opposition to regularising their services, despite several recent court judgments providing relief to similarly placed employees.In an official circular issued by the personnel department to all UT department secretaries, the administration has shifted the responsibility for any regularisation policy squarely onto the central govt. It said regularisation of contractual employees would only be considered if the Centre frames specific policies or rules in this regard, which the Chandigarh administration would then adopt.The circular emphasises strong reservations against blanket regularisation. It warns that approving such demands for one group could open the floodgates for other similarly situated daily-wage or contractual employees working in various departments, boards or corporations. Departments are asked to assess whether they would be in a position to extend the benefit to all eligible staff.Highlighting concerns over fairness in public employment, the circular questions: “Will it not be unfair if a large number of vacancies are filled through such regularisation in the present era of scarcity of govt jobs, when lakhs of well-qualified youth are preparing for competitive examinations and awaiting regular vacancies?”The administration has directed all heads of UT depts to strongly present these views, along with relevant judgments, before the courts through senior counsel while defending cases related to regularisation of daily-wage or contractual employees.The circular cites multiple high court and Supreme Court judgments to support its position. It specifically references a judgment dated April 25, 2024, by a division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court in CWP No. 9322-2024 (Bipin Sher Singh Vs. Union of India and others), in which the plea of contractual teachers under the Education Department for regularisation was dismissed.It also invokes the landmark Supreme Court judgment in Secretary, State of Karnataka vs. Umadevi (dated April 10, 2006), which laid down strict guidelines on regularisation. The circular notes that the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has clarified that regularisation under the Umadevi judgment was a one-time exercise limited to daily-wage, ad hoc or contractual employees who had completed 10 years of continuous service as on April 10, 2006, without the protection of any interim court orders.Reacting sharply to the circular, Arvind Rana, legal adviser to the Chandigarh Teachers’ Association (CTA), criticised the administration’s approach. “As usual, the administration is searching for an escape route and putting the onus on Govt of India. Without any regularisation policy by the Centre, they claim they cannot regularise contractual employees by framing their own policy. In its circular, the department fails to mention the recent judicial judgments in favour of regularisation,” he said.Rana added that the administration has been consistently losing cases in the high court and the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Chandigarh, and may eventually be forced to regularise employees through court orders rather than through a proactive policy.The move comes amid ongoing demands from various groups of contractual employees, including teachers, for absorption into regular service after years of continuous engagement. The Administration’s position underscores its alignment with Central service rules and its commitment to merit-based recruitment through competitive processes.
