Daily rated employee cannot claim regularization when initial appointment was not done by competent authority: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that a daily rated employee cannot claim regularization of employment when his initial appointment was not done by a competent authority and there existed no sanctioned post on which such an employee was working [Vibhuti Shankar Pandey v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others]..A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia was hearing an appeal against a decision of a division bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court refusing to grant the benefit of regularization to the appellant-employee..As per the facts of the case, in the year 1980, the appellant was engaged as a supervisor, on daily rated basis, under a project of State Water Resources Department. He had sought regularization to the post of supervisor/ time keeper, but the minimum qualification for the said post at that time was matriculation with mathematics, which the appellant didn't possess.Later, the government relaxed such requirement of qualification and thereafter, the appellant again sought regularization since he was qualified for the post and had been working on daily wage basis for a long period of time.However, the claim of the appellant for regularization was again rejected for the reasons that though the minimum qualifications of matriculation with mathematics will not come in the way for his regularization, but the fact remains that the appellant was never appointed against any post. While rejecting the appellant's request for regularization, the concerned authority also highlighted the appointment of the appellant was never made by a competent authority and there were no posts available when the appellant had sought regularization.The appellant, thereafter, had set his claim for regularization on the fact that persons who were junior to him as daily wagers were regularized in the year 1990 or even before, but he was not regularized. A single-judge of the High Court allowed the claim and gave directions for regularization of the appellant from the date on which his juniors were regularized. However, a division bench set aside the order of single-judge prompting the appellant to move the Supreme Court..The Supreme Court said that as per its decision in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi and Others (2006), there are two pre-conditions that are to be fulfilled in order to claim regularization of employment, which are:- initial appointment must be done by the competent authority; and- there must be a sanctioned post on which the daily rated employee must be working.According to the Court, both the above conditions were missing as far as the appellant was concerned. Therefore, the top court said that the rejection of his regularization request was correct on the part of the authority and the High Court. "The Division Bench rightly held that the learned Single Judge has not followed the principle of law as given by this Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi and Others, as initial appointment must be done by the competent authority and there must be a sanctioned post on which the daily rated employee must be working. These two conditions were clearly missing in the case of the present appellant. The Division Bench of the High Court therefore has to our mind rightly allowed the appeal and set aside the order dated June 27, 2019," the apex court said. Therefore, the appeal for regularization was dismissed..[Read Judgment]