SHC dismisses plea of contract employees seeking job regularisation

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has dismissed as not maintainable a petition of the provincial human rights department’s contract employees seeking regularisation of their employment.

The petitioners, Dohni Das and others, had filed a petition with the SHC seeking regularisation of their contract employment in the human rights department. Their counsel submitted that the human rights department had extended illegal, mala fide, highly discriminatory and unlawful treatment to the petitioners.

He submitted that the impugned order of their termination of contract was unlawful and discriminatory and other employees were regularised with their regularisation effective from the date of acquiring requisite qualifications rather than their initial appointment date.

He submitted that the petitioners, despite being similarly situated, were denied these benefits due to mala fide reasons. The counsel said the petitioners faced hostile discrimination and qualified the test of intelligible differentia, deserving similar treatment. He submitted that the impugned order violated the Articles 2, 4, 10, and 25 of the Constitution.

An assistant advocate general submitted that the petitioners were contractual employees hired for a specified period, and their contracts had expired. He submitted that the cases of petitioners for regularisation were not recommended at the time of appointment due to lack of qualification or unsatisfactory performance.

He further submitted that their cases were considered by the scrutiny committee but it rejected them for the same reasons. The SHC was told that the cases were considered with due diligence, and a detailed and speaking order was passed.

The law officer said that all the contractual employees were considered for regularization to avoid partial treatment and the committee decided not to recommend the petitioners due to multiple reasons, including qualification and performance.

A division bench of the high court headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha observed in the judgment that regularisation of employment hinged on legal backing and without a specific law, policy or rules governing regularisation, and an individual could not simply petition the high court for such relief.

The high court observed that the petitioners were hired for temporary contract-based positions as explicitly stated in their employment contracts and these contracts also stipulated that they could not claim regularisation.

The SHC observed that the application of the law made by the respondents while scrutinising the cases of the petitioners was correct appreciation of the law supported by both regularisation policy and existing legal precedents, rendering the decision of the scrutiny committee valid and sustainable as the issue of qualification had been raised. The SHC observed that it could not change the disqualification into qualification. The high court found the petition as meritless and dismissed it.