HC directs regularisation of 15 Group D civic staffers
The core issue before Justice Rajarshi Bharadwaj was whether these staff members, who had served as Group D employees for a long time on vacant and necessary posts but without regularisation, are entitled to be absorbed into regular service.
Their appointments had been made prior to Sept 2006, before the West Bengal Municipal Employees' (Recruitment Rules), 2005 had come into force. At the time, there were no codified service rules for appointments to municipal posts.
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The expectations of these employees of being absorbed into regular service had been raised because the municipality, between 2017 and 2019, made requests for their regularisation to the local bodies director. The director advised initiation of the process in 2018. A 2019 recruitment notice seeking to fill the posts held by petitioners was stayed by the Calcutta HC in 2020.
Justice Bharadwaj held: "The petitioners' appointments were not illegal, but at most procedurally irregular, having been made at a time when no formal recruitment framework was in place.
Their long and uninterrupted service spanning nearly two decades in performing essential municipal functions, combined with repeated recommendations and affirmations by competent municipal authorities, clearly establishes a case of legitimate expectation for regularisation.
"
"The doctrine of equality, read in conjunction with the judicially recognised distinction between 'illegal' and 'irregular' appointments, fully supports the regularisation of petitioners in the present factual context, as has already been directed in similarly placed cases," the HC held.
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