Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

3. The necessary instructions to the respective Collectors may be issued in the above line with due approval of the Member, Board of Revenue and copy W.A. No.777 of 2021 and connected cases of the same may also be sent to this Department for record.

4. These instructions are issued with the concurrence of Finance Department vide U.O.R. 452/GS-I dated 18.11.2006."

5. Following the said letter, the Respondents were engaged as DEOs after a computer test was held. For that purpose, each of the Respondents was informed by the Collector, Cuttack, by a letter dated 24th January, 2008 that the candidate's name had been shortlisted from the list supplied by the District Employment Exchange and that a computer test was going to be organized on 31st January, 2008. A candidate was asked to come for the said test along with xerox certified copies of the relevant documents. It is stated that a written undertaking was obtained from each of the candidates in a proforma which inter alia was in the form of acknowledgement that candidate "was fully aware that my appointment is purely temporary and on contract basis and can be terminated at any time without any notice and assigning any reason thereof. Further, I am fully aware that my continuance in the said post is contingent upon extension of the said post with concurrence of Finance Department and subject to my satisfactory performance to be evaluated by the appropriate authority". The written undertaking further stated that "in future I shall not claim regular scale of pay and other allowances for continuing in the said post merely on the ground that I have been given a contract appointment and my contractual appointment have been extended from time to time". It is not in dispute that the said engagement has in many of the cases in this batch, continued for well over 10 years now. In W.A. No.777 of 2021 and connected cases fact, all the contesting individual Respondents are even today working as DEOs in the various Taluks.

(ii) contractual appointments/engagements made against the contractual posts created with the concurrence with the Finance Department without abolition of any corresponding regular posts in case of news offices, or

(iii) for strengthening of the existing offices/services

9. The requirement was that (i) the engagements should have been made following the recruitment procedure prescribed for the corresponding regular posts and (ii) the principle of reservation as decided by the State Government from time to time. The regularization of the contractual employees would be effective from the date of completion of six years of service or from the date of publication of Resolution (i.e.) 17th September, 2013 whichever was later, in the order in which the names appeared in the gradation list. The period of six years was to be counted from the date of contractual appointment prior to the publication of the said Resolution. Upon regular appointment, the contractual posts, if any, would get converted to regular sanctioned posts.

W.A. No.777 of 2021 and connected cases

10. Following this, the Orissa Group-C and Group-D Posts (Contractual Appointment) Rules, 2013 ('the 2013 Rules') were issued by way of a Notification dated 12th November, 2013. The 2013 Rules recognized two categories of contractual employees:

(a) Category I: Contractual appointments/engagements made against contractual posts created with the concurrence of Finance Department without following the recruitment procedure including the Odisha Reservation of Vacancies in Posts and Services (for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Act, 1975 ('ORV Act') and the rules made there under and Rules regulating recruitment for the regular posts;

26. In W.A. No.777 of 2021 the following order was passed by this Court on 18th November, 2021:

"1. Mr. Khuntia, learned Additional Government Advocate (AGA) for the Appellant drew attention of this Court to the Odisha Group C and Group D Posts (Contractual Appointment) Rules, 2013 and submitted that among the many grounds urged by the Appellants to assail the impugned judgment dated 9th September, 2021 of the learned Single Judge one is that the learned Single Judge was in error in observing that the above rules have no application in view of the earlier resolution dated 17th September, 2013 of the General Administration Department (GAD). According to him, the Respondents would be considered in their turn for regularization in terms of Rule 5 read with Rule 8 (a) of the aforementioned Rules and that the decision in W.A. No.777 of 2021 and connected cases State of Karnataka v. Uma Dei (3), (2006) 4 SCC 1 will have no application since the contractual appointments of the Data Entry Operators (DEOs) in the present case were not against the sanctioned posts of DEOs but the sanctioned post of Junior Clerks and that too on a short term contractual basis.