Supreme Court: Regularisation Can’t Be Claimed if Appointment Was Not By A Competent Authority And There Is No Sanctioned Post

The Supreme Court in the case Vibhuti Shankar Pandey Versus. The State Of Madhya Pradesh observed and has reiterated that to seek regularisation, a daily rated employee should have been initially be appointed by a competent authority and there must be a sanctioned post on which the employee must be working. The bench comprising of Justice Ravindra Bhat and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia in the case was hearing a Civil Appeal arising out of a Special Leave Petition which is filed against the order passed by the division bench of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh.

It has been held by the division bench of the High Court, in the impugned order that the Appellant’s employment could not be regularised because his initial employment did not satisfy the principle of law as the same is being laid down in the case by the Supreme Court in tSecretary, State of Karnataka and Ors. v. Umadevi and Ors. However, the division bench was hearing a Letter patent Appeal an appeal against the order of the single judge who had allowed the writ plea wherein the court directing for regularization of the appellant from the date on which his juniors were being regularized.

The court noted in the Uma Devi case wherein it has been laid down by the Supreme Court a set of two conditions for regularisation of daily wage employees: Firstly, the competent authority must do the initial appointment and Secondly, there must be a sanctioned post on which the daily rated employee must be working. In the present case, it has also cbeen noted by the Supreme Court that that the appellant was never appointed against any post. However, the competent authority never made the said appointment and there were no posts available at the time for regularization. Accordingly, the court dismissed the SLP, vide a short order, wherein holding that it being a law laid down by the Constitution Bench of this Court in Uma Devi, the appellant had no case for regularization. Hence, the court stated that there being no such scope for our interference with the order of the Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court.