- (1.) M. Katju, J. Heard learned Counsel for the petitioners and learned standing Counsel.
(2.) THE petitioners have challenged the impugned order dated 13-3-2002 Annexure-1 to the writ petition and prayed for a mandamus directing the respondents to regularize their services on the post of Assistant Engineer in Meerut Development Authority under Rule 20-A as amended by U. P. Development Authority Centralised Service (Seventh Amendment Rules), 2001. This case has a chequered history as mentioned in the writ petition but it is not necessary to go into the same as the petition can be disposed of on a short point. THE petitioners were appointed on various dates as Assistant Engineers in Meerut Development Authority. THEse appointment dates are from 1-10-88 to 1-2-91 vide paragraph 6 to the writ petition and Annexure-6 to the writ petition. Thus all the petitioners were appointed before 29-6- 91. Rule 20-A of the U. P. Development Authority Centralised Services (Third Amendment Rules), 1997 stated as follows:- "rule 20-A2.-In the Uttar Pradesh Development Authority (Centralised) Services Rules 1985 after Rule 20 the following rule shall be inserted - 20-A (1) Regularisation of Ad-hoc Appointment.- (i) Any person who was directly appointed on ad-hoc basis before October 1st, 1986 and is continuing in service as such on the date of commencement of these rules. (ii) Possessed requisite qualification prescribed under Rule-14 for regular appointment at the time of such ad-hoc appointment and (iii) has completed or as the case may be after he has completed three years continuous service shall be considered for appointment in permanent or temporary vacancy as may be available on the basis of his service record and suitability before any regular appointment is made in such vacancy in accordance with the provisions contained in these rule. (2) In making regular appointment under these rules reservation for the candidates belonging to the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribes, Backward Classes and other categories shall be made in accordance with the order of Government in force at the time of recruitment. (3) For the purpose of sub-rule1 Government shall constitute a selection committee and consultation with the commission shall not be necessary. (4) The appointing authority shall prepare an eligibility list of the candidates, arrange in order of seniority as determined from the date of order of their ad-hoc appointment and if two or more persons are appointed together from the order in which these names are arranged in the said appointment order. The list shall be placed before the selection committee alongwith their character rolls, and such other service records pertaining to them as may be considered necessary to judge their suitability. (5) The selection committee shall consider the case of candidates on the basis of their records referred to in sub-rule (4 ). (6) The selection committee shall prepare a list of selected candidates, the names in the list being arranged in order of seniority and forward it to the Government. (7) The State Government shall subject to the provision of sub-rule (2) of this rule make appointments from the list prepared under sub-rule (6) of these rules in order in which their names stands in the list. " The aforesaid rule was amended by U. P. Development Authorities Centralised Services (Seventh Amendment) Rules, 2001 vide Annexure 24 to the writ petition. This amendment states as follows: - Amendment of Rule 20-A - In the Uttar Pradesh Development Authorities Centralised Services Rules, 1985 for sub-rule (1) of Rule 20-A the following sub-rule shall be substituted, namely: - "20-A. (1) was directly appointed on ad-hoc basis on or before June 29, 1991 and is continuing in service as such on the date of commencement of these rules. " These is no dispute that the petitions were possessing the requisite qualification prescribed under Rule 14 for regular appointment at the time of their initial appointment. Hence in our opinion they should have been considered for regularisation by the Selection Committee to be constituted by the State Government under Rule 3 of the Third Amendment Rules (copy of which is Annexure 5 of the petition ).
(3.) HOWEVER, it seems that by the impugned order Annexure-1 to the writ petition dated 13-3-2002 the respondents have refused to consider the petitioners for regularisation on the ground that they are not ad-hoc appointment. In our opinion this observation in the impugned order is clearly wrong. Merely because the petitioners were appointed initially on daily wage/contract basis it does not mean that they are not ad-hoc appointees. The word ad-hoc in Latin means "for a particular purpose" (see Webster's and Oxford Dictionary ). As stated in paragraph 2 of the petition, the petitioners were appointed because the Meerut Development Authority was short of staff in the year 1984 upto 1991 and there was need of staff in view of large-scale construction activities of the development authority. Hence the petitioners appointments were certainly on ad-hoc basis as they were for a particular purpose (for the construction work for which there was shortage of staff ). Moreover, Annexure-23 of the writ petition is the Government Order dated 19-4-2001, which states that Junior Engineer should be treated as ad-hoc appointees. In our opinion the same principle should also apply to the Assistant Engineers. Hence we quash the impugned order dated 13-3-2002 and declare that petitioners were ad-hoc employees of the Meerut Development Authority.;