In a significant judicial intervention impacting the state’s service rules, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has set aside the Haryana Government’s 2014 decision to revive a shelved regularisation policy for Class II officers. The Division Bench, comprising Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor, ruled that the state could not resurrect a policy that bypasses the mandatory consultation with the Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC).
The Bench passed the order while allowing a petition filed by regularly appointed employees of government-run polytechnics. The petitioners had challenged the government’s move to grant retrospective regularisation to ad hoc appointees on Class II posts upon completion of just two years of service. The court specifically quashed the impugned policy dated June 16, 2014, and the consequential regularisation orders issued on August 29, 2014.
Citing constitutional provisions, the Bench observed that appointments to Class II posts fall directly under the purview of the Public Service Commission as per Article 320 of the Constitution. “Once recruitment to Class II posts fell within the purview of the Public Service Commission, it was not open for the State to come out with a policy which had the effect of regularising such appointments on completion of two years of service,” the Bench asserted.
The court traced the issue back to a policy originally framed on March 7, 1996, which permitted the regularisation of ad hoc Class II employees but was withdrawn in December 1997 following Supreme Court observations. The Bench noted that the state failed to provide any valid justification for reviving this defunct policy in 2014. It rejected the respondents’ argument that the revival was necessary to remove arbitrariness, stating that no principle of law justifies regularisation that circumvents the constitutional mandate of the Public Service Commission.
