HYDERABAD: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has rejected multiple petitions filed on the question of regularisation of the officials hired for the Hyderabad Development Package (HDP) project.

The court announced its detailed judgement on March 28 while disposing of the please filed by the temporary employees hired by the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) for the HDP project.

The order was authored by Justice Adnanul Karim Memon who summarised the case of the petitioners.

According to the court’s order, petitioners mentioned in CP 361, 518, 1526 and 1562 of 2019 were seeking regularisation of their services as director finance (BS-19), executive engineer (BS-18), assistant executive engineer (BS-17) and superintendent (BS-17) in the HDA.

Petitioners in CP-D 85/2012 and 724/2018 prayed for the issuance of quo warranto against the petitioners seeking regularisation of job on the ground that they were not qualified to hold the aforesaid offices either due to lack of transparency in their initial appointment or they were invalidly accommodated in BS-17 to BS-19 without any competitive process.

The judge asked Arshad Khan Tanoli, counsel in the four petitions, to show if a selection committee was formed to approve their contracts. Tanoli said the petitioners’ services were spared and resultantly their salaries were stopped. They were relieved from the service without any further order of the competent authority. He said the petitioners had served for a considerable period, thus accrued vested right of being regularised. He said that if there was discrepancy in the appointments, the petitioners could not be held responsible for it.

HDA’s counsel Ameer Faisal questioned the maintainability of those four petitions, saying that a contractual employee was governed by the principle of master and servant and, therefore, had no right for seeking regularisation/absorption/reinstatement in service in the event of arbitrary dismissal or unwarranted termination. Such employee could only sue for damages, he added.

He said the terms of service of the petitioners were governed by their contractual letters. He submitted that project appointments could not be regularised after completion of the project under any circumstances. He asserted that a project post was up to the approved project period and tenure of an appointee stood terminated on the expiry of that period.

He said there was a difference between contract employees and those employed in projects. Therefore, relief could not be granted to them, he said.

He said their services had already been terminated/ spared, thus their matters were closed transactions. He submitted that contractual letters of the petitioners clearly mentioned that they would be appointed on a contract basis and shall have no right to claim regular absorption and their terms would be governed by contract.

Arshad Tanoli vehemently controverted the stance of the HDA’s counsel and said the petitioners were appointed after completion of legal formalities and approval of the competent authority and that they assumed their charge, received salaries for a certain period and department had no justifiable reason to withdraw orders of their appointment.

He prayed the court to allow the petitions and dismiss those filed against them.

The judge noted that the petitioners’ services were hired on contractual basis for the HDP. They were absorbed against vacant posts in the HDA and Wasa on Jan 28, 2010. Then the district coordination officer (DCO)/HDP project director on Oct 26, 2011, directed repatriation of the officers to their offices, HDA and Wasa. Their services were placed at the disposal of the HDA DG for further posting.

The judge said he had gone through the judgements authored by his brother judges and held the view that the petitioners were employees for a particular project, thus could not be treated as absorbed employees because the project was not taken over by the Sindh government on non-development side.

He said the petitioners were purportedly appointed without any competitive process, which was not a regular appointment under the recruitment rules. They were contractual employees, thus their relationship was regulated and governed by the principle of master and servant, he said.

He said the Supreme Court had held in numerous pronouncements that a contract employee, whose terms and conditions of service were governed by the principle of master and servant, did not acquire any vested right for regular appointment and he was debarred from approaching court in the constitutional jurisdiction.

The judge said he was guided by the decision of Supreme Court and in the present case forcing the respondent to act as per whims and wishes of the petitioners was not only burdensome, but a transgression of power. “I may observe that appointment in public office can only be made through competitive process on merit as provided under recruitment rules and not otherwise”, the order said while dismissing all the four petitions.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2022