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With effect from 1st of January, 1981, the U.P. State Leather Development and Marketing Corporation Limited General Rules came into force replacing the earlier Service Rules. Under the new Rules of 1981 also there were Rules which provided for probation and confirmation. The relevant Rule relating to appointment on probation was as follows :-
"Any employee regularly appointed for the first time or promoted to any post in the Corporation shall be placed on probation for a period of one year from the date of joining the new post. The performance of the employee in the new post will be watched during the probation and the appointing authority will issue a certificate of having satisfactorily completed the probation at the end of the period. The appointing authority has discretion to extend the period of probation for two years without assigning any reason therefor. After the expiry of three years' probationary period if the employee is not confirmed, he will have a right to represent his case to the Board whose decision shall be final."

The appellant was appointed on probation as Divisional Manager on 10.1.1978. The letter of appointment mentioned that his probation was for a period of one year. under the earlier Service Rules then in force, the respondents had the discretion to extend the period of probation without assigning any reason therefor. But there was no such order extending the period of probation of he appellant. A s per the Rule relating to probation, the appointing authority was required to issue tot he appellant a certificate of having satisfactorily completed probation at the end of the probationary period. No such certificate has been issued. The Rule relating to Confirmation states that the employee shall be deemed to have become confirmed employee after he has successfully completed the period of probation. The deemed confirmation depends on satisfactory completion of probation. The High Court has taken the view that since no certificate has been issued by the respondents at the end of one year about the appellant having satisfactorily completed his period of probation, he remained on probation for a period of seven years till 1985 when his services were terminated by the order of 31st of March, 1985.

We find from the affidavit in reply which was filed by the respondents in the writ petition before the High Court, that the respondents have nowhere contended that the appellant was on probation or that his order of discharge is on the basis that he was a probationer. On the contrary, in paragraph 8 of the affidavit of Shri N.D. Singhal, Assistant Secretary of the respondent-Corporation, which was filed before the High Court, it is stated that an employee of the Corporation first placed on probation and before the expiry of the probationary period no notice or pay in lieu of notice is required to be given (sic.). This (i.e. notice or pay in lieu of notice) is required to be given only when the services of the employee concerned are confirmed.

Whether an employee at the end of probationary period automatically gets confirmation in the post or whether an order of confirmation or any specific act on the part of the employer confirming the employee is necessary, will depend upon the provisions in the relevant Service Rules relating to probation and confirmation. There are broadly two sets of authorities of this Court dealing with this question. In those cases where the Rules provide for a maximum period of probation beyond which probation cannot be extended, this Court had held that at the end of the maximum probationary period there will be deemed confirmation of the employee unless Rules provide to the contrary. This is the line of cases starting with State of Punjab v. Dharam Singh (1968 [3] SCR 1), M.K. Agarwal v. Gurgaon Gramin Bank & Ors. (1987) Supp. SCC 643), Om Prakash Maurya v. U.P. Cooperative Sugar Factories Federation, Lucknow & Ors. (1986 Supp. SCC