The claim of & Ors. v. Sta te of Assam reported in 1988 (1) GLJ 383 & Ors.

The claim of the appellants was contested by the Autonomous Council by submittin g that the appointments made without following the accepted norms of public appo intment do not confer any right to continue in service. Recommendation to the St ate Government was made only on humanitarian grounds which did not create any ri ght in favour of the appellants. Learned Single Judge held that though even in absence of right to be regularized after regular selection, the appellants had right to receive fair treatment as held in the judgment of this Court in Sri Hemanta Kumar Pegu and others Vs. Sta te of Assam and others reported in 1988 (1) GLJ 383, and the power to terminate services could not be exercised arbitrarily, during the pendency of the writ pet ition, an additional affidavit dated 21.09.2005 was filed on behalf of the Counc il stating that the posts held by the appellants may not be available on the dat e of filing of the affidavit as the same had been filled up and some of the post s have not been continued. The stand taken in the said affidavit was not challen ged by the petitioners. Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed. We have heard learned counsel for the appellants. Learned counsel for the appellants submits that as per letter of the Government dated 20.08.2004 (Annexure-W) the vacancies of Junior Engineers were available and therefore the learned Single Judge was not justified in holding that the pet itioners had no right to continue. He submitted that the Council was the exclusi ve Authority in relation to departments of PWD, Agriculture, Irrigation and Publ ic Health and thus the number of vacancies which may be available in the said de partments where the appellants could be adjusted. Opposing the above submission, learned counsel for the Council submitted that th e appellants have no right to continue in service. They were appointed in terms of Section 3(f) of the Assam Public Service Commission (Limitation of Functions) Regulations, 1951 in the year 1999 and they continued up to year 2002 and the v acancies against which they were appointed had not been filled up. Their service s were terminated in the year 2002. The Council filed an affidavit dated 21.09.2 005 which was never challenged by the appellants before the learned Single Judge and in these circumstances, learned Single Judge was justified in dismissing th e writ petition. Question for consideration is whether the appellants were entitled to continue i n service irrespective of the nature of their appointment? Admittedly the appointment of the appellants was temporary for a period of four months without following the procedure of regular selection. This is born out fr om the letters of appointment of the appellants and the scheme of the statutory regulations. The Regulations require selection process to be undergone for any a ppointment except for appointments made for a period of four months. On expiry of the period of four months, the appointments come to an end. This being the po sition, we are unable to find any error in the view taken by learned Single Judg e in declining to issue direction for regularization of the services of the appe llants, particularly when an affidavit was filed to the effect that the posts oc cupied by them had already been filled up and such statement was not challenged by the appellants. The appeal is dismissed.