Regularisation Of Ad Hoc Employees Without Advertisement Or Interview Arbitrary: Supreme Court Strikes Down Haryana’s 2014 Policy

The Court found that the impugned policy dated July 07, 2014, lacked any rational basis, particularly in prescribing a future cut-off date, and was designed to accommodate ad hoc employees outside the regular selection process. The Court clarified that the “one-time measure” doctrine under Secretary, State of Karnataka and others v. Umadevi & Ors. 2006 INSC 216 is a limited exception intended to regularise only those employees who were irregularly appointed and had long years of service, and cannot be invoked repeatedly to legitimise fresh or future appointments.

Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Atul S. Chandurkar in a batch of appeals challenging a decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, observed, “…There is no justification placed on record by the State of Haryana as to why services of such ad hoc employees, who had not been engaged on the basis of any advertisement or interview were sought to be regularised, that too by taking into consideration a future cut-off date of 31.12.2018. The claim of being engaged sans an advertisement itself gives rise to doubts as regards the manner of engagement. Absence of any record whatsoever of the manner of engagement does not inspire any confidence in such process…”.

Senior Advocates B Adi Narayan Rao, Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, Lok Pal Singh, Arun Bhardwaj appeared for the appellant and Senior Advocates S. Janani, Sunil Kumar Nehra, Narender Hooda, Arun Bhardwaj, Dr. Monika Gusain while Senior Advocate Nidhesh Gupta appeared as Amicus Curiae.

In the matter, notifications issued by the State of Haryana in June and July 2014 seeking to regularise Group ‘B’, ‘C’, and ‘D’ employees engaged on contractual, ad hoc, or daily wage basis was disputed. While the State justified the policies on administrative grounds, the original writ petitioners contended that they enabled backdoor entry into public service.

The High Court had, by its judgment dated May 31, 2018, quashed all the notifications, holding them contrary to the law laid down on regularisation and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

Before the Supreme Court, the State and affected employees argued that the policies were a valid exercise of executive power aimed at addressing staffing shortages. The respondents, however, maintained that regularisation could not be used as a mode of recruitment and must conform to constitutional requirements.

The Court distinguished between the impugned notifications, and upheld the notifications dated June 16 and June 18, 2014, observing that they were intended to extend the benefit of an earlier policy to eligible employees who had been left out, without relaxing essential conditions such as qualification and engagement against sanctioned posts.

However, the Court struck down the notifications dated July 07, 2014, holding that they sought to regularise employees who had not been appointed through any transparent process and introduced a future cut-off date of December 31, 2018 without justification. The Court noted that such policies would prevent regular recruitment and facilitate impermissible regularisation.

“In our view, the Notifications dated 07.07.2014 seek to regularise the engagement of such ad hoc employees, who were not initially engaged through the process of advertisement nor after facing any interview. Such stipulations are not found in the earlier Notifications dated 16.06.2014 and 18.06.2014, which we have held to be valid…That such ad hoc employee has not faced any interview is another relevant feature. Further, there does not appear to be any rational basis for fixing a future cut-off date, which is beyond four years from the date of the Notifications. This would indicate that even when it was possible to initiate a process of regular recruitment after issuance of the Notifications dated 07.07.2014, by virtue of the impugned Notifications, number of posts which could have been filled in through regular recruitment were not liable to be advertised. The intent was to accommodate such ad hoc employees, who came to be engaged, albeit temporarily, in the absence of any public advertisement or interview”, the Bench noted.

“…We see no justifiable reason to uphold the validity of the two Notifications dated 07.07.2014 since they intend to regularise the services of such ad hoc employees, who were engaged without any advertisement and without being interviewed. To that extent, the impugned judgment of the High Court holding the Notifications dated 07.07.2014 to be arbitrary and illegal does not deserve to be interfered with”, the Bench further noted.

Accordingly, the Court partly modified the High Court’s judgment by upholding the June 2014 notifications while declaring the July 2014 notifications arbitrary and illegal. Exercising its powers under Article 142 of the Constitution of India, it directed that employees already continuing under the invalidated policy shall not be disturbed, but shall be placed at the lowest pay scale applicable to their posts.

Cause Title: Madan Singh & Ors. v. State of Haryana & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2026 INSC 379)

Appearances:

Appellants: B Adi Narayan Rao, Sr. Adv., Ravi Prakash Mehrotra, Sr. Adv., Lok Pal Singh, Sr. Adv., Bharpur Singh, Akash, Dr. Amardeep Gaur, Divyanshu Sahay, Saurabh Arora, Mukesh Kumar, Vinay Kumar Sah, Ahutosh Bhardwaj, Prateek Rai, Srikant Singh, Srajan S Kulshrestha, Anurag Pandey, V. Maheshwari & Co., AOR, Dinesh Kumar Garg, AOR, Shivam Singh, Ravi Shanker Jha, Yoshit Jain, Pooja, Vishal Arun Mishra, AOR, Himanshu Sharma, AOR, Sandeep Singh, Aditi Sharma, Arun Kumar Raghav, Digvijay Singh Raghav, Kamlesh, Anjali, Varun Sharma, Richa Attrey, Hari Shankar Rajvans, Narender Singh, Jyoti Rajvansh, Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, AOR, Deepak Goel, AOR, Lokesh Sinhal, Arun Bhardwaj, Sr. Adv., Dr. Monika Gusain, Sr. Adv., Karishma Malani, Akshay Amritanshu, AOR, Hariom Yaduvanshi, Nikunj Gupta, Arjun Yaduvanshi, Ishika Gupta, Hari Om Yaduvanshi, S. Harini, Aakanksha, Arjun Yadhuvanshi, Drishti Rawal, Sarthak Arya, Neha Mishra, Sarthak Srivastava, Mayur Goyal, Seema Sindhu, Vansmani Tripathi, Kirti, Richa Verma, Samar Vijay Singh, AOR, Siddharth Mittal, AOR, Abhijeet Varshney, Sumit Kumar Sharma, Shilpa G Mittal, Atul Kumar, Abhimanyu Sharma, Deepali Atreja, Rahul Thukral, Manish Chaurasia, S. K. Verma, AOR, Jasbir Singh Malik, Prachi Sohi, Pooja Devi, Varun Punia, AOR, Shish Pal Laler, Hitesh Kumar, Atul, Vedant Pradhan, Hardik Giri, Pranav Singh Gautam, Naman Singh, R. C. Kaushik, AOR, Pardeep Gupta, Parinav Gupta, Mansi Gupta, Rakshit Rathi, Shadab Khan, Dr. Vipin Gupta, AOR, Krishna Kumar, Ram Naresh Yadav, AOR, Sarvesh Kumar Yadav, Suryavir, Satyendra Kumar, AOR, Dr. Sudhir Bisla, Sumitra Bisla, Roshan Singh Thakur, Subhasish Bhowmick, AOR, Kv Jagdishvaran, Malika Agarwal, G. Indira, AOR, P Gandepan, Anjali Singh, Amrita Kumari, Raniba Pangnila, Amrit Kaur, Preeti Singh, AOR, Roopansh Purohit, AOR, Harsh Panwar, Narayani Sepaha, Haresh Raichura, AOR, Rishi Malhotra, Sr. Adv., Ansuiya, Shivaansh Maini, Prem Malhotra, AOR, Abhimanyu Tewari, AOR, Siddhant Saroha, Sudhant Awasthy, Aniket Kumar Parcha, Kartik Jasra, Shivam Jasra, AOR, Vidhi Sharma, Shivam Nagpal, Nakul Khanna, Hari Pratap Singh, Shish Pal Laler, Hitesh Kumar, Hardik Giri, Naman Singh, Preeti Kumari, Naveen, Shivam Sharma, Sanjay Maurya, Mohit Mathur, Ravi Panwar, AOR, Ram Bhadauria, Robin Khokhar, AOR, Ritu Reniwal, B.n. Dubey, Shekhar Chandra, Khushi Thawal, Esha Thawal, Ranvir Singh, AOR

Respondents: Nidhesh Gupta, Sr. Adv. (Amicus Curiae), Japneet Kaur, Jhanvi Dubey, Ashok Mathur, AOR, Vriti Gujral, Bikram Dwivedi, Jimut Mohopatra, Jasbir Singh Malik, Prachi Sohi, Pooja Devi, Varun Punia, AOR, Sarthak Ghonkrokta, AOR, Samar Vijay Singh, AOR, Sabarni Som, Aman Dev Sharma, Gaj Singh, Pushkar Sharma, Baani Khanna, AOR, Robin Singh, Kapil Balwani, Shrikant T., Satyendra Kumar, AOR, Dr. Sudhir Bisla, Harikesh Singh, Sumitra Bisla, Roshan Singh Thakur, Sandeep Sinhmar, Amita Dhiman, Roopa Paul, Parveen Paul, Arun Bhardwaj, Sr. Adv., Dr. Monika Gusain, Sr. Adv., Akshay Amritanshu, AOR, S. Harini, Hariom Yaduvanshi, Neha Mishra, Avi Dhankar, Tanya Gupta, Arjun Yaduvanshi, Hari Om Yaduvanshi, Arjun Yadhuvanshi, Vansmani Tripathi, Drishti Rawal, Sarthak Srivastava, Mayur Goyal, D. Vidyanandam, Vipin Kumar Jai, AOR, John Mathew, AOR, Dr. Nirmal Chopra, AOR, John Mathew, K V Jagdishvaran, G. Indira, AOR, P Gandepan, Amrita Kumari, Anjali Singh, Raniba Pangnila, Amrit Kaur, Dhananjay Garg, AOR, Shekhar Mehla, Jatin Bhardwaj, AOR, Madhu Moolchandani, AOR, S. Janani, Sr. Adv., Aakriti Jain, AOR, D. S. Matya, Palak Goel, Akash Rana, Udian Sharma, AOR, Manav Mitra, Vibhuti Sushant Gupta, Keane Sardhina, Narender Kumar Verma, AOR, Subodh Kumar Pathak, Vinod K. Soni, R. P. Wadwani, Ansar Ahmad Chaudhary, AOR, Ranvir Singh, AOR, Piyush Sharma, AOR, Anuj Kumar Sharma, Arjunsanjay, Aditya Dikshit, Shish Pal Laler, Hitesh Kumar, Vedant Pradhan, Hardik Giri, Varun Tokas, Mohit, Ravi Panwar, AOR, Mallika Agarwal, S. Janani, Sr. Adv., Madhu Moolchandani, AOR, Sunil Kumar Nehra, Sr. Adv., Harshit Sethi, Rahil Mahajan, Manasi Tripathi, Kartik Yadav, Kunal Verma, AOR, John Mathew, K V Jagdishvaran, G. Indira, AOR, P Gandepan, Amrita Kumari, Anjali Singh, Raniba Pangnila, Amrit Kaur, S. Janani, Sr. Adv., Deepak Goel, AOR, Alka Goyal, Archana Preeti Gupta, Nishant Kumar, Rao Ranjit, AOR, Siddharth Batra, AOR, Archna Yadav, Karan Singh Narang, Seema, Chinmay Dubey, Shivani Chawla, Ashutosh Chugh, Pankaj Kumar, AOR, Dr. Nirmal Chopra, AOR, Ashish Pandey, AOR, Akash, Srajan S. Kulshrestha, Anurag Pandey, Bharpur Singh, Ram Naresh Yadav, AOR, Sarvesh Kumar Yadav, Chritarth Palli, Sahil Tagotra, AOR, Narender Hooda, Sr. Adv., Pallvi Hooda, Shiv Bhatnagar, Yuvraj Nandal, Kavya Manuja, Tannu, Shaurya Lamba, Dr. Surender Singh Hooda, AOR, R. D. Narwal, F. I. Choudhury, AOR, B. K. Satija, AOR, Chritarth Palli, AOR, Ravi P. Wadhwani, AOR, Rabin Majumder, AOR, Ashish Pandey, AOR

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