Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Apr 3: Division Bench of High Court comprising Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Sindhu Sharma has held that contractual appointee has no right to the post or to continue on the post unless the authorities decide to extend the term or reappoint.
This significant order has been passed in an appeal filed by Nisha Sharma challenging the judgment passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Jammu Bench whereby Tribunal dismissed the petition and refused to quash the advertisement notice dated 06.02.2019 issued by the respondent whereby two posts of Lady Assistant Zila Sainik Welfare Officer, one from Jammu and another from Srinagar were advertised and, at the same time, refused to issue any direction for extending the term of the petitioner who was appointed on contract basis.
After hearing Advocate Ankesh Chandel for the petitioners whereas AAGs Raman Sharma and Aseem Sawhney appearing for the UT, the DB observed, “this court found no error or illegality in the order of the Tribunal in as much as the conditions of the service relied upon by the petitioner are not mandatory in nature, more particularly when the appointment of the petitioner was contractual”.
“The service conditions do not provide that the services of a contractual employee in all cases are liable to be extended or that it is mandatory to extend the service for a period of 12 years or till the candidate attains the age of 60 years. No law has been shown to us which provides that a contractual employee cannot be replaced by another contractual employee after the term of the contract has expired”, the DB said.
“Moreover on the expiry of the contract period if the post is advertised afresh, it is always open for the earlier contractual employee to apply which protects the right of the petitioner for seeking fresh appointment”, the DB further said.
“It is important to point out that two posts of Lady Assistant Zila Sainik Welfare Officers were created with the sole object to give benefit to the widow of armed forces personnel/wife of ex-servicemen/wife of a serving armed forces personnel as is clear from one of the criteria laid down for appointments on the post”, the DB said, adding “since the creation of posts is in social interest to mitigate the hardship of the category of ladies, it is necessary that opportunity to maximum number of ladies belonging to these categories is given so that most of such ladies get the advantage and it may not remain confined to one person”.
With these observations, Division Bench dismissed the appeal.
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