Justice E.V. Venugopal of Telangana High Court directed the Telangana State Police Housing Corporation to continue the site engineers and junior assistants working with it on temporary basis in their respective positions without taking any coercive steps against them.
Disposing of a batch of writ petitions filed by Site Engineers Graduate (Civil), Site Engineers (Diploma) and Site Engineers/Junior Assistants challenging discontinuation of their services, the judge said the petitioners were at liberty to approach the corporation for regularisation of their services. The judge instructed the TSPHC and the Principal Home Secretary “to consider their case in accordance with law and rules in force within a period of three months”.
While considering their applications for regularisation, the authorities should not replace them with any other outsourcing candidates considering the long-standing services rendered by the contract employees, the judge said. The officials should consider “to relax the age conditions while considering the issue of regularisation of the services of the petitioners with prospective effect only and without any monetary benefits,” the order said.
The petitioners were selected in 2012 to work with the corporation by a Selection Committee through a recruitment notification on contract basis for a period of 11 months with consolidated remuneration. They had been working with the corporation for over past 10 years with ‘artificial breaks’ in service.
In 2020, the corporation issued orders discontinuing their services. The petitioners contended that the corporation was contemplating appointing new persons in their place with higher remuneration. Challenging discontinuation of their services, the petitioners moved the HC by filing writ petitions.
Justice E.V. Venugopal observed that the authorities giving artificial breaks to the petitioners and denying reappointment orders on a par with similarly situated employees to deny them regularisation in existing vacancies was arbitrary, discriminatory and illegal. The contention of the corporation that it was not bound by State government orders relating to regularisation services “has no legs to stand and will not stand for scrutiny of law”, the verdict said.
