Tapen Sen, J. - (1.) THE Petitioners have prayed for an Order commanding upon the Respondents to give them employment on regular basis and to absorb/regularise them in their services without any further delay. They have also prayed for a Writ of prohibition restraining and prohibiting the Respondents from discontinuing with their services till disposal of the Writ Petition. Other consequential prayers have been made including, that during the pendency and till disposal of the Writ Petition, the Respondents should allow the Petitioners to continue in an uninterrupted manner. The Petitioner No. 25, Pintu Sur was added as a Co -Petitioner on the basis of his prayer made in, CAN 10557 of 2011 by Order dated 5.1.2012. The Interlocutory Application was allowed and therefore no Order is being passed thereon at this stage save and except to observe that on record, there are 25 Petitioners now who have made the aforesaid prayers.
(2.) ACCORDING to the Petitioners, they have the requisite qualifications and eligibility and their names were duly recorded in the concerned Employment Exchanges. They were sponsored for various Group -C and Group -D posts under the Respondent No. 3 (the Executive Council of the Indian Maritime University). They were selected on the basis of interviews against regular posts and were appointed on ad hoc basis for a limited period which were renewed from time to time by artificial breaks. It is stated that the Petitioner No. 1 was sponsored by the Zilla Sainik Board as he was an Ex -serviceman. He and the Petitioner Nos. 2 to 19 were appointed on ad hoc basis w.e.f. 22.6.2011 to 18.9.2011. The Petitioner No. 20 was also appointed w.e.f. 22.6.2011 to 18.9.2011. The Petitioner No. 21 was however not appointed after his tenure from 22.6.2011 to 18.9.2011 came to an end. Similarly, the Petitioner No. 22 was also not appointed after 18.9.2011 but he was given seasonal appointment with lower contractual rate which was not accepted by him and he turned down the appointment with a protest letter. The Petitioner Nos. 23 and 24 were not appointed on regular post of Safaiwala but were given seasonal appointment. According to the Petitioner No. 25, Pintu Sur, he had stated in his Application being CAN 10557 of 2011 that he had joined as a Peon on 13.9.2006 in the Maritime Engineering Research Institute and since then, he has been working as such but with artificial breaks. These Petitioners have stated that they are serving the Indian Maritime University, Kolkata campus as non -regular employees for a period ranging from 8 years w.e.f. 2003. According to them, the Respondent No. 2 University was established in the year 2008 by an Act of Parliament being the Indian Maritime University Act, 2008.
(3.) ACCORDING to the Petitioners, since they were appointed through a regular selection process against existing vacancies, their appointments, therefore cannot be said to be "backdoor appointments" nor can they be said to be illegal or irregular and in that background, they have stated that although the University had agreed initially to take all the existing employees and although they invited options from the existing employees including the Petitioners, they did not however regularise them. Under these circumstances, the present Writ Petition has been filed.;