Supreme Court: In a batch of appeals arising from a common judgment dated 22 February 2023 passed by the Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court whereby the Division Bench dismissed a batch of intra-court appeals and connected writ petitions challenging the rejection of the appellants’ claim for regularisation of their services and validity of exclusion contained in Section 3(b), Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010, a Division Bench of Vikram Nath* and Sandeep Mehta, JJ., set aside the impugned judgments and declared that Section 3(b) of the Act, insofar as it excludes employees appointed on an “academic arrangement basis” from consideration for regularisation despite fulfilment of conditions under Section 5 of the Act, was unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
Factual Matrix
In the instant matter, the controversy originated from the Jammu and Kashmir Medical and Dental Education (Appointment on Academic Arrangement Basis) Rules, 2009 (2009 Rules) issued on 14 December 2009. These rules permitted the State to appoint teaching staff, medical officers, nurses, paramedical, para-dental and technical staff in Government Medical Colleges on an “academic arrangement basis” pending regular recruitment.
Subsequently, the State enacted the J&K Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010 (the Act), which provided for the regularisation of employees appointed on ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis subject to certain conditions. However, Section 3(b) of the Act expressly excluded persons appointed “on academic arrangement for a fixed term in any Government Department” from its purview.
Pursuant to the 2009 Rules, the appellants were appointed between 2011 and 2013 to the posts of Junior Staff Nurse/Female Multipurpose Health Worker in government medical colleges. Despite working for several years against sanctioned posts, their appointments remained temporary.
In August 2015, the government medical college recommended that the posts occupied by the appellants be referred to the Service Selection Board for regular recruitment. Thereafter, on 1 September 2015, an advertisement was issued inviting applications for 1088 regular posts, including those held by the appellants.
Aggrieved by the proposed recruitment and exclusion from regularisation, the appellants approached the High Court seeking relief under the Act and challenging the exclusion contained in Section 3(b). The Single Judge dismissed the writ petitions in May 2018, and the Division Bench affirmed that decision in February 2023. The appellants consequently approached the Supreme Court.
Moot Points
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Whether the State was justified in classifying employees appointed on “academic arrangement basis” as a separate category under Section 3(b) of the Act, thereby excluding them from the benefit of regularisation available to ad hoc, contractual or consolidated appointees?
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Whether such exclusion violated the equality guarantee under Article 14 of the Constitution of India?
Appellants’ Contentions
The appellants contended that the exclusion of academic arrangement appointees from the Act created an arbitrary and unjustified classification. It was argued that there existed no intelligible differentia between employees appointed on “academic arrangement basis” and those engaged on ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis. All such employees were performing similar duties and working against sanctioned posts. Hence, excluding them from regularisation defeated the very object of the Act.
It was further contended that the appellants were appointed through a transparent process, possessed the required qualifications, and had been rendering continuous service for more than a decade in essential public institutions. Their duties were identical to those performed by regular employees and were indispensable for the functioning of government medical colleges.
The appellants also submitted that the State could not extract long-term services from them and subsequently attempt to replace them through a fresh recruitment process. It was contended that such action was arbitrary and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
State’s Contentions
The State opposed the appeals and defended the High Court’s decision. It argued that Section 3 of the Act applied only to specified categories of appointees, namely those engaged on ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis, and therefore the appellants, being appointed on “academic arrangement basis,” fell outside its scope.
The State further relied on the proviso to Rule 4 of the 2009 Rules, which clearly stated that appointments made under those Rules would not confer any preferential claim for regular appointment through the normal recruitment process. It was also contended that the appellants had voluntarily accepted the terms of appointment and had executed affidavits agreeing to the conditions of service. Having accepted those terms, they were estopped from claiming regularisation.
Additionally, the State argued that granting regularisation to the appellants would prejudice other eligible candidates who might have refrained from applying earlier because the posts were advertised as temporary engagements. Lastly, it relied on settled principles of service law that temporary or contractual engagement does not create a vested right to regularisation.
Court’s Analysis
At the outset, the Court noted that the High Court had rejected the appellants’ claim primarily on the following grounds:
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The Act applied only to appointments made up to 29 April 2010, which was the appointed date under the Act.
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The 2009 Rules were framed to ensure the smooth functioning of medical institutions until regular recruitment could take place. The appellants had knowingly accepted that they would have no preferential claim for regular appointment.
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Their engagement was for a limited period and could not be regarded as prolonged service warranting regularisation.
The Court asserted that at the very threshold, it was unable to concur with the reasoning adopted by both Single Judge bench and Division Bench of High Court. It was observed that the High Court had failed to properly examine the constitutional challenge to Section 3(b) of the Act. It was emphasised that once the validity of the statutory provision was questioned on the ground of violation of fundamental rights, the High Court ought to have undertaken a substantive analysis of its constitutional compatibility.
Relying on Anjum Kadari v. Union of India, (2025) 5 SCC 53, the Court reiterated the well-settled principle that a legislative enactment may be invalidated only on two grounds, namely, lack of legislative competence, or violation of fundamental rights or other constitutional provisions.
Since legislative competence was not disputed in the present case, the Court examined whether the classification created by Section 3(b) violated Fundamental Rights guaranteed under Part III of the Constitution.
The Court noted that the Act created two distinct classes of appointees, namely, those appointed on an ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis, and those engaged on an academic arrangement. The Court referred to State of Punjab v. Davinder Singh, (2025) 1 SCC 1, which considered the permissibility of sub-classification within the framework of affirmative action, in the context of the equality mandate under Article 14 of the Constitution and reiterated that a classification must satisfy two requirements:
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there must be an intelligible differentia distinguishing the persons grouped together from others left out of the group; and
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the differentia must have a rational nexus with the object sought to be achieved by the statute.
Applying this test, the Court examined the distinction between contractual appointments under the Jammu and Kashmir Contractual Appointment Rules, 2003 (2003 Rules) and academic arrangement appointments under the 2009 Rules and noted that both are similar in nature and the provisions relating to appointment, termination, and execution of agreements were almost identical. It was noted that the only difference was that appointments on academic arrangement basis carried a maximum tenure of six years, whereas contractual appointments continued until regular recruitment.
The Court emphasised that the purpose of the Act was to regularise long-standing irregular appointments and protect employees who had been serving for prolonged periods against substantive posts. Denying this benefit to employees performing identical duties merely because their appointment was labelled as “academic arrangement” would defeat the legislative intent.
The Court further held that once the statutory conditions under Section 5 of the Act, such as qualification, appointment against clear vacancies and completion of required service, are satisfied, the nature of the initial engagement becomes irrelevant.
“Fulfilment of statutory conditions under Section 5(i) to (v) of the 2010 Act is determinative of eligibility for regularization. Once such conditions are satisfied, the nature of the initial engagement, whether academic arrangement, ad hoc, contractual or consolidated, ceases to have any legal relevance.”
The Court criticised the State’s conduct, observing that the State is expected to act as a “model employer” and not as a “hard-bargaining or avaricious negotiator.” It found that the State had merely repackaged contractual engagement under a different nomenclature, without any meaningful difference in duties or conditions of service.
“Nomenclature is not determinative of constitutional entitlement. Where employees appointed on an ‘academic arrangement’ basis are similarly situated to those engaged on ad hoc, contractual or consolidated basis in terms of duties, tenure, conditions of service and mode of appointment, denial of equal treatment solely on the basis of nomenclature is impermissible under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.”
The Court asserted by creating such an artificial classification, State had failed to establish any reasonable nexus between the classification and the object sought to be achieved by extending the benefit of regularisation to the latter category alone. Thus, it was held that the exclusion created by Section 3(b) resulted in “invidious discrimination” against employees appointed on academic arrangement basis, thereby infringing their fundamental right to equality
Court’s Decision
The Court allowed the appeals and held that the exclusion of employees appointed on academic arrangement basis from the benefit of regularisation was unconstitutional. It declared that Section 3(b) of the Act, insofar as it excluded such employees despite their fulfilling the conditions under Section 5, was unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
The Court issued the following directions:
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The judgments of the High Court dated 22 February 2023 and 27 December 2024 were set aside.
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Section 3(b) of the Act, to the extent it excluded academic arrangement employees from consideration for regularisation, was declared unconstitutional and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
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The State was directed to consider the appellants for regularisation under Section 5 of the Act without reference to the nomenclature of their appointment.
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This exercise was to be completed within 4 weeks.
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The benefit of the judgment was extended to all similarly situated employees appointed on academic arrangement basis who satisfy the statutory requirements.
[Abhishek Sharma v. State of J&K, Civil Appeal arising out of SLP (C) No. 5108 of 2023, decided on 9-3-2026]
*Judgment by Justice Vikram Nath
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