Different Yardstick Cannot Be Applied: Bombay High Court Directs Regularisation Of 479 VVMC Doctors & Medical Staff, Quashes CBT Mandate For COVID-19 Frontliners
The Court quashed State directive mandating computer-based examination as a pre-condition for regularising doctors and para-medical staff who served for up to a decade, including through the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Bombay High Court has held that a different yardstick cannot be applied to contractual employees seeking regularisation once other similarly placed employees of the same civic body have already been absorbed without any examination. The Court found that Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation (VVMC) could not now impose a fresh eligibility test on medical officers, para-medical and administrative staff, who had served continuously for eight to eleven years, merely because the State Government introduced such a requirement belatedly. Pertinently, many had rendered service during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a batch of writ petitions filed by medical officers, para-medical and administrative staff of VVMC, they had challenged a government communication dated January 21, 2026 directing a computer-based examination before their contractual services could be regularised. The petitioners argued that 33 of their similarly placed colleagues had already been made permanent without any such test, and that imposing the condition on them alone was arbitrary and discriminatory.
A Division Bench of Justice G. S. Kulkarni and Justice Aarti Sathe observed, “…we may observe that this is a case where the VVMC would not be justified in continuing the petitioners in contractual employment for such long periods, particularly when perennial work is available qua the said posts. It was also not appropriate in the fact circumstances, for the State Government as well as the VVMC, to foist upon the petitioners, a condition of undergoing an examination as a condition precedent for the purpose of regularization. This particularly when such approach was not adopted in respect of many other employees, not only of the VVMC but also of the other municipal corporations, who came to be regularized without being subjected to any such examination. A different yardstick cannot be applied to the petitioners. In any event, no useful purpose would be served by insisting upon such an examination, inasmuch as the petitioners have been discharging the duties of their respective posts for such a long period…”.
“…They are duly qualified and were appropriately appointed by following a proper procedure. There is no dispute whatsoever in regard to the quality and standard of the services rendered by them in the discharge of their public duties in the medical department of the VVMC. It is also clear that, having discharged their duties on the said posts for such a long period, the petitioners have acquired a legitimate expectation that their long and continuous service would be recognized. Thus, it was incumbent upon the VVMC to recognize the petitioners long and continuous service. It was certainly not their expectation that their contractual appointments would continue as if it is a permanent arrangement”, it noted further.
Advocate Abhijeet Desai appeared for the petitioner and P. P. Kakade, Addl. G.P. appeared for the respondent.
The petitioners, appointed as doctors and support staff through advertisements and a duly constituted Selection Committee under the Maharashtra Municipal Corporations Act, 1949, had been retained on repeated six-month contracts, often with a one-day "technical break" to avoid claims of permanency. Of 465 sanctioned posts, only 52 were filled permanently, while 479 contractual employees, including the petitioners, continued the Corporation's core work.
Interim protection against coercive action had been granted since 2023. Subsequent orders recorded that VVMC intended to seek State approval for a regularisation scheme, similar to schemes sanctioned for other municipal corporations, but the process stalled after the State introduced the examination requirement in January 2026.
The Court noted that the petitioners' appointments, following open advertisement and selection, were not illegal back-door entries under Umadevi, and that their work was perennial in nature. Relying on Jaggo, Dharam Singh, Bhola Nath and Arvind Kumar Srivastava, the Bench held that benefits extended to similarly situated employees must ordinarily be extended to all, and that long, uninterrupted service creates a legitimate expectation of regularisation.
“In our opinion, in fact, the plight of the employees who were similarly placed like the petitioners was considered by the State Government, while dealing with the other municipal corporations, when regularization of their services has been granted. Also in the case of the VVMC, 33 employees have been granted regularization as approved by the State Government without they being subjected to any further selection procedure. The law would be required to be applied uniformly to all such employees. In our opinion, the law certainly supports the petitioners’ case…”, it noted further
It observed that the State, as a model employer, cannot rely on contractual labels to perpetuate ad-hocism, particularly where petitioners are now age-barred from alternative public employment.
The Court quashed the communications dated January 21, 2026 and January 28, 2026, held that the petitioners could not be subjected to a written examination, and directed VVMC to absorb and regularise them within two weeks. Rule was made absolute with no order as to costs.
Cause Title: Dr. Bhakti Deepak Chaudhary & Ors. v. Vasai Virar City Municipal Corporation & Anr., (Neutral Citation: 2026:BHC-AS:37648-DB)
Appearances:
Petitioners: Abhijeet Desai, Mohini Rehpade, Daksha Madhav, Vijay Singh, Karan Gajra and Deepesh Ramrakhiyani, instructed by Desai Legal LLP.
Respondent: P. P. Kakade, Addl. G.P., A. K. Naik, M. P. Thakur, N. M. Mehra and D. S. Deshmukh, AGPs, Vishwanath Patil, Arun Panickar instructed by Mr. Milind N.