J&K and Ladakh HC: hire-by-choice then regularise is fraud on Constitution
The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh held the government cannot pick people of its choice as casual workers and later regularise them. Hiring without advertisement or fair selection breaches Articles 14 and 16, a fraud on the Constitution. Modifying a Central Administrative Tribunal order, it made ten-year casual workers eligible for regular engagement under the 2017 Rules.
Syllabus: GS2 · Constitution; GS2 · Separation of Powers; GS4 · Probity in Governance
Why this matters for UPSC
GS2 polity and governance: Prelims can ask what Articles 14, 16, 226 and 323A provide and how the Central Administrative Tribunal was set up; GS2 Mains, about backdoor hiring in public employment and service disputes.
Why it matters
A young graduate preparing for a government post loses a fair chance when an office quietly fills the work with people of its own choosing and later makes them permanent. The ruling tells governments that such side-door hiring cannot be cleaned up afterwards through a regularisation policy, and that a job cannot be handed out as payment for land. At the same time, workers who have already served a decade are not thrown out: they get what the existing rules give them, and no more. The larger question is how to keep public jobs open to everyone on merit while treating long-serving casual staff fairly.
Prelims pointers
- Article 16(1) guarantees equality of opportunity to all citizens in employment or appointment to any office under the State.
- Article 16(4) lets the State reserve posts for any backward class of citizens not adequately represented in its services; clause (4A) came by the 77th Amendment, 1995.
- Article 14 protects any person, citizen or not: equality before the law and equal protection of the laws within India.
- Article 226 lets High Courts issue writs for Part III rights 'and for any other purpose', wider than Article 32.
- Article 323A allows one administrative tribunal for the Union and a separate one for each State or for two or more States.
- Part XIVA (Articles 323A and 323B) was inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976; Article 323B covers tribunals for other matters.
- The Central Administrative Tribunal is constituted under Section 4 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 (Act No. 13 of 1985).
Practise a UPSC-style question
With reference to Article 16 of the Constitution of India, consider the following statements:
1. Clause (4A), which enables reservation in promotion for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, was inserted by the Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act, 1976.
2. Clause (4) lets the State reserve posts for any backward class of citizens that, in its opinion, is not adequately represented in its services.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Show the answer
Answer: (b) 2 only
Answer: (b) 2 only. Clause (4) is the backward-class enabling provision; clause (4A) came in 1995, not 1976.
Statement 1: incorrect. Clause (4A) was inserted by the Constitution (Seventy-seventh Amendment) Act, 1995, with effect from 17 June 1995, not by the Forty-second Amendment.
Statement 2: correct. Article 16(4) permits reservation of appointments or posts for any backward class of citizens not adequately represented in the services under the State, in the State's opinion.
Eliminate: statement 2 is the plain text of Article 16(4). Out: (a), (d).
Eliminate: statement 1 names the wrong amendment, since clause (4A) dates from 1995. Out: (c).
Trap: Swapped attribution. The Forty-second Amendment is famous for many changes, so a student may credit it with clause (4A), which came with the Seventy-seventh.
Remember: Article 16(4) backward classes; 16(4A) SC/ST promotion, 77th Amendment, 1995.
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