2025 SCC OnLine SC 221.
2025 SCC OnLine SC 1735.
9.1. The law governing regularisation of contractual, ad-hoc or temporary
employees stands authoritatively settled in Umadevi, which mandates strict
adherence to Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and prohibits
regularisation as a mode of public employment.
9.2. The Petitioners were admittedly appointed on a purely contractual
basis through walk-in interviews, pending formulation of Recruitment Rules
and regular selection. Their engagement was for a fixed tenure of one year
or till regular appointments were made, whichever was earlier, with an
express stipulation that no right to regularisation would accrue.
9.3. The selection process adopted for engaging the Petitioners did not
conform to the constitutional scheme of public employment. There was no
all-India advertisement, no competitive examination, and no duly constituted
Selection Committee as per any Recruitment Rules. Consequently, the
appointments were de hors rules and cannot even be treated as "irregular"
so as to attract the limited exception carved out in paragraph 53 of Umadevi.
9.4. Merely because the Petitioners continued in service for a long
duration on the strength of successive contractual extensions, no right to
regularisation accrues in their favour. The Supreme Court in National
Fertilizers Ltd. & Ors. v. Somvir Singh8 categorically held that length of
service, by itself, does not confer any enforceable right, and that
appointments made in violation of the constitutional scheme or recruitment
rules cannot be validated on the ground of long continuance. Further, in
Official Liquidator v. Dayanand & Ors.9 the Supreme Court authoritatively
ruled that the law declared in Umadevi is binding under Article 141 and
2025 SCC OnLine Del 8313.
(2006) 5 SCC 493.
cannot be diluted by equitable considerations or by subsequent continuance
of contractual or temporary employees. Any claim for regularisation
founded solely on long service, therefore, is legally untenable.
9.5. The plea of legitimate expectation is wholly misconceived. The terms
of appointment clearly indicated the temporary and contractual nature of
engagement. In fact, the Petitioners were required, as a condition of
appointment, to furnish a specific undertaking that they would not seek
regularisation of their services. Having accepted such terms with open eyes
and continued in service on that basis, the Petitioners are estopped from
asserting any claim contrary thereto. In any event, the State or its
instrumentalities cannot hold out any promise of regularisation in derogation
of Articles 14 and 16.
9.6. The University, after its establishment in 2009, initiated regular
recruitment processes in 2018-19. Some of the Petitioners participated in the
said regular selection along with other eligible candidates on an all-India
basis but failed to secure selection. Having failed in the regular recruitment
process, they cannot claim continuation or regularisation as a matter of right.
9.7. The fact that one contractual employee succeeded in the regular
selection and was appointed on a regular basis itself demonstrates that the
recruitment process was fair and open, and that the Petitioners were afforded
equal opportunity in compliance with Articles 14 and 16.
9.8. Reliance on Vinod Kumar and Jaggo is misplaced. Those judgments
turned on their own peculiar facts involving clear discrimination and long
years of service akin to regular employment, and do not dilute or overrule
the binding ratio of the Constitution Bench in Umadevi. In Jaggo, the
(2008) 10 SCC 1.
Supreme Court was concerned with Group 'D' employees performing
menial and perennial functions where educational qualifications were never
central to engagement, whereas in Vinod Kumar, the employees had been
treated throughout as part of the regular cadre, including conduction of
promotion process through Departmental Promotion Committees.
9.9. Based on a consistent line of authorities, including State of
Karnataka & Ors. v. M.L. Kesari & Ors.10, State of Orissa & Anr. v.
Mamata Mohanty11, State of Jammu and Kashmir & Ors. v. District Bar
Association, Bandipora12, regularisation is neither a source of recruitment
nor a mechanism to validate appointments made in violation of the
constitutional scheme.
9.10. The fresh recruitment initiated vide Advertisement No. 03/2025 dated
06th November, 2025, seeks to fill 66 posts through direct recruitment in
accordance with law. The Petitioners, having no vested or accrued right,
cannot seek to stall the regular recruitment process, which is constitutionally
mandated. At best, the Petitioners' right is limited to participation in regular
selection with such age relaxation or concessions as may be permissible
under law; however, no writ of mandamus can be issued directing their
regularisation or continuation.
Analysis:
10. The dispute must be approached with clarity about first principles.
Regularisation is not a parallel mode of entry into public service. Articles 14
and 16 insist on an open and fair access. The Constitution Bench in
Umadevi was directed against clandestine entry, patronage-based
(2010) 9 SCC 247.
(2011) 3 SCC 436.
appointments, and judicially directed absorption of persons who never came
through an open process.
11. At the same time, recent decisions have cautioned courts against a
mechanical application of Umadevi to perpetuate prolonged ad hocism. The
Supreme Court, in Vinod Kumar, has clarified that the essence of
employment and the rights flowing therefrom cannot be determined solely
by the initial terms or label of appointment where the actual course of
employment has evolved significantly over time. Where continuous service
in posts performing perennial functions has, in substance, assumed the
character of regular employment, the initial nomenclature cannot be invoked
as a permanent basis to deny substantive rights that accrue through long and
sustained service.
12. The present case turns on a well-recognised factual and legal
distinction in this line of jurisprudence. The question is whether the
Petitioners' appointments were "illegal" or "back-door" in the sense
explained in Umadevi, that is, back-door or surreptitious appointments made
in patent breach of minimum qualifications or the constitutional scheme, or
whether they were appointments made through a public and transparent
process, against continuing institutional requirements, and described as
"contractual" only because the University had not, at that time, completed
its internal regular recruitment framework.
13. On the record as set out, the Petitioners' entry into service was neither
clandestine nor constitutionally tainted. The University issued public
advertisements from July 2010 onwards; eligibility conditions were
prescribed; and selection processes, including skill or written tests where
(2017) 3 SCC 410.
required, were undertaken. The appointment letters record recommendation
by a duly constituted Selection Committee and approval by the Vice-
Chancellor. The engagements were thereafter continued for years, without
allegation of misconduct or incompetence. These features place the present
case squarely outside the category of "illegal" or "back-door" appointments
contemplated in Umadevi and align it with the distinction recognised in
Vinod Kumar.
14. The Respondent's principal defence rests on three planks: the
contractual label and disclaimers, the absence of Recruitment Rules at the
time of recruitment, and the submission that some Petitioners failed in later
regular recruitment process.
15. None of these defences, in isolation, is dispositive in view of the
subsequent pronouncements of the Supreme Court. First, contractual
disclaimers and undertakings not to seek regularisation do not conclude the
constitutional inquiry. In Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand13, decided after
the conclusion of arguments in the present case, the Supreme Court
expressly disapproved a mechanical reliance on contractual stipulations to
defeat scrutiny. It held that contractual clauses barring claims for
regularisation cannot override the guarantee of equality under Article 14, nor
can acceptance of such terms be construed as a waiver of fundamental
rights. Emphasising the State's obligation to act as a model employer, the
Court observed that the State cannot take advantage of the unequal
bargaining position of employees by continuing them for years on
sanctioned posts under a contractual label and thereafter deny consideration
for regularisation solely on that basis. The mere nomenclature of
engagement, or disclaimers contained in appointment letters, cannot
immunise arbitrary State action from constitutional review.
16. Second, the absence of Recruitment Rules at the time of initial
engagement cannot be turned into a sword against employees if the
employer itself allowed the situation to persist for years, while extracting
full-time work of a perennial character. Where rules are absent, the relevant
question is whether the process adopted was public-facing, transparent, and
non-arbitrary, and whether the engagement thereafter assumed the
characteristics of regular institutional employment. In the present case, it is
not merely the length of service that is significant, but the manner in which
the University treated the Petitioners during that tenure. The Petitioners
assert that they discharged duties akin to those performed by regular
employees. While the Respondent contests the legal consequences of their
engagement, it has not specifically denied that the Petitioners were extended
components of the regular pay structure, including HRA, TA and DA, and
were placed under full administrative control with restrictions on outside
employment. The extension of such allowances and service conditions over
a period indicates that the engagement was not treated as casual or project-
bound, but as part of the University's continuing establishment
requirements. If the employer chose to recruit through public advertisement
and selection committees, and thereafter sustained the relationship in this
manner for over a decade, it cannot later characterise the same engagement
as constitutionally infirm solely because it continued to describe it as
"contractual".
17. Third, participation or non-participation in a later regular recruitment
2026 SCC OnLine SC 129.
exercise does not, by itself, extinguish a claim that has matured through long
and continuous service pursuant to a non-illegal entry. The Division Bench
of this Court, in Pawan Sharma & Ors. v. Government of NCT of Delhi14,
held that Courts must look beyond the surface label of appointment and
examine the reality of employment, namely, continuous, blemish-free
service in posts performing perennial and integral functions of the
establishment. Once such service reflects a regular and continuing
institutional requirement, the claim cannot be defeated by requiring the
employees to undergo a later recruitment process as though their past service
were of no legal consequence. A subsequent recruitment notification, by
itself, cannot furnish a complete answer to the arbitrariness inherent in
prolonged contractual engagement.
18. What ultimately matters is the character of the relationship that the
University itself sustained. When an institution engages persons through a
process resembling regular recruitment, places them under full
administrative control, restricts outside employment, assigns them work
essential to the institution, and then continues them year after year for a
decade and more, the arrangement stops looking like a stop-gap and starts
looking like a parallel cadre. The Supreme Court in Jaggo treats this
phenomenon as a misuse of the "temporary" label and holds that courts must
look to the reality of service, not the nomenclature.
19. Applying these principles, the Petitioners' case crosses the crucial
threshold. Their entry is not shown to be "illegal", "back-door" or tainted
with mala fide. Their service is long, continuous, and blemish-free. The
posts are not project-bound. They are core administrative, ministerial, and
W.P.(C) 2117/2025 & other connected matters.
technical functions of a University. The repeated extensions, over nearly
fifteen years, demonstrate continuing institutional need.
20. In these circumstances, continued refusal to regularise is not a neutral
insistence on constitutional recruitment. It becomes an arbitrary insistence
on form that permits the employer to benefit from its own prolonged default
in organising public employment on regular lines. That outcome is
incompatible with Article 14.
21. The University has contested the availability of sanctioned posts in
the cadres concerned and submits that, in the absence of sanctioned
vacancies, no direction for regularisation can be issued. This contention
cannot be brushed aside; however, it cannot conclude the matter either. The
Division Bench of this Court in Pawan Sharma, after analysing the recent
decisions of the Supreme Cout beginning from Vinod Kumar right up until
Dharam Singh, has clarified that where employees have entered service
through a process which was not unlawful, and have rendered long,
continuous and unblemished service in posts performing perennial functions,
the right to consideration for regularisation does not evaporate merely
because the posts were not shown to be sanctioned at the time of
engagement. While the existence of sanctioned strength may assume
relevance in moulding relief, the absence of clear material regarding such
strength cannot, by itself, justify indefinite continuation of a parallel
contractual establishment performing regular institutional work. The real
question, therefore, is whether the institutional requirement exists and
whether the State instrumentality has organised that requirement on a lawful
footing. It is in this backdrop that the directions which follow are required to
be issued.
22. Relief must therefore be structured in a manner that respects the
constitutional discipline emphasised in Umadevi, while also ensuring that
the State instrumentality does not perpetuate a parallel contractual
establishment in respect of work that is perennial and integral to its
functioning. The absence of clear material regarding sanctioned strength,
particularly when such strength is within the exclusive domain of the
employer, cannot be permitted to operate as a self-serving defence to
indefinitely postpone regularisation.
23. Accordingly, the University is directed to undertake, within a period
of eight weeks from today, a structured review of its sanctioned strength and
existing vacancies in the cadres presently occupied by the Petitioners. For
this purpose, a Committee comprising senior administrative and finance
officers, and where necessary a nominee of the competent sanctioning
authority, shall be constituted to assess the existing sanctioned strength and
vacancies, if any, in the relevant cadres; and where institutional requirement
exists but sanctioned posts are found deficient, take expeditious steps, in
accordance with law, to seek approval for creation or augmentation of posts
commensurate with such requirement.
24. Upon completion of the above exercise, and subject to verification of
the Petitioners' appointments, the University shall consider regularisation of
the services of eligible Petitioners, in accordance with the applicable rules
and statutory norms, against available or duly created posts, with effect from
the date of completion of the said exercise. This process shall be completed
within a period of six months from today.
25. Until the aforesaid exercise is concluded, the Petitioners shall not be
displaced by outsourcing or fresh contractual engagement in respect of the
functions presently discharged by them.
26. The writ petition stands disposed of in the above terms. Pending
applications, if any, also stand disposed of.
SANJEEV NARULA, J
MARCH 10, 2026/ab
