Guj HC issues notice in plea to consider ad-hoc services of Civil Judges for seniority, pay etc.

The intervention of the Gujarat High Court has been sought by 74 civil judges in the state, praying that services rendered by them as ad-hoc civil judges till their appointment as regular civil judges be treated as continuous service for the purpose of seniority, leave, pay and other consequential benefits..Following initial submissions made through counsel Vaibhav A Vyas for the petitioners, the Bench of Chief Justice R Subhash Reddy and Justice Vipul M Pancholi issued notice in the matter, returnable by July 6..The petitioners were inducted as civil judges in 2012 and 2013, after undergoing the regular recruitment process consisting of preliminary examination, main examination and oral interview..After their initial appointment on an ad-hoc basis in 2012 and 2013, the petitioners were made regular civil judges through notifications issued from July 2015 onwards..The bone of contention lies in the fact that upon their regularisation, the services rendered by the petitioners as ad-hoc civil judges were not taken into consideration for the purposes of seniority, pay, leave and other benefits..Protesting the same, a representation was made by the petitioners to the concerned authorities in April 2017. The petitioners had thereby requested that the High Court reckon the services of the petitioners from the dates of their initial appointment as ad-hoc civil judges, instead of the date of their regularisation, for determining seniority, pay fixation and promotion..However, the representation did not yield any response. In the meanwhile, the High Court published a list of civil judges eligible for promotion to the cadre of senior civil judges in February 2018. Whereas regular civil judges appointed in 2012 were considered in this list, the ad-hoc judges i.e. the petitioners, who were appointed in the same year, were ignored..In their special leave application before the High Court, the petitioners have challenged this action to be absolutely illegal, arbitrary and discriminatory. It has been contended,.“…when the process of selection and the nature of duties performed is common, the services rendered by the petitioners, while working on Ad-hoc basis, is required to be taken into consideration while regularizing their services for the purpose of seniority, pay, promotion, etc….…there cannot be any discrimination between two sets of Civil Judges, i.e. (i) those who are initially appointed on Ad-hoc basis and who are subsequently regularized in service and (ii) those who are appointed as Regular Civil Judges from initial stage. .This is more particularly when the services of the Civil Judges, who were initially appointed on Ad-hoc basis have been subsequently regularized by the respondent No: 2 [High Court] when the services of the petitioners were found satisfactory. .It is respectfully stated that, the impugned action of the respondent authorities would amount to creating a class within a class, which is not permissible in the eye of law.”.Adding to their grievances, the petitioners state that their ad-hoc appointment had prevented them from applying for the post of district judge, for which notifications were issued almost every year from 2012 onwards..“Many petitioners could not apply for appointment to the said post as they were already in Judicial Service, on Ad-hoc basis, during the said period from 2012 to 2018. Thus, a situation is created whereby the period of Ad-hoc service is neither counted as Regular service nor the same is treated as period of practice as advocate. Thus, the petitioners are cut from both the ends.”.To buttress their case, reference has also been made to the consistent policy of the state government to take into consideration ad-hoc services rendered by government employees when it comes to determining pay, seniority etc., provided that there is no break in rendering the service. In this regard, the petitioners have relied on resolutions passed by the government in 1981 and 1998..The petitioners have also made reference to other fields of public employment, where the state government has considered services rendered by ad-hoc employees for the above stated benefits, after such employees were regularised..Further, the petitioners contend that the Gujarat State Judicial Service Rules, 2005, which governs civil judges in the state, does not make any distinction between ‘ad-hoc’ and ‘regular’ service when defining ‘service’..On these grounds, the petitioners have prayed that the Court issue a writ of mandamus directing the concerned authorities to take into consideration the services rendered by the petitioners during their tenure as ad-hoc judges as well, for all purposes, including seniority, pay, leave and other consequential benefits..In the interim, the petitioners have prayed that those judges who were appointed on an ad-hoc basis in 2012 (and whose appointments were subsequently regularised) be considered for promotion as senior civil judges..It has also been prayed that the authorities be retrained from considering regular judges who were appointed simultaneously with the petitioners for promotion as senior judges, while disregarding the services rendered by the petitioners as ad-hoc judges.