Contractual Employee Cannot be Replaced by Another Contractual Employee Absent Regular Appointment or Unsatisfactory Performance

The Respondent was appointed as Assistant Director (Entomology) on a contractual basis by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on March 1, 2019

His contract was renewed six consecutive times, extending his tenure until March 19, 2025

Following the expiration of the last contract, the Petitioners extracted work from him for two additional months without communication before retrospectively disengaging him on May 20, 2025

Three days later, the Petitioners issued a fresh advertisement to fill the same post on a contractual basis

The Respondent challenged this before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), which allowed the OA, directing his re-engagement

The Union of India filed this writ petition to assail the CAT's order

1. Whether a contractual employee can be replaced by another set of contractual employees for the same post when the requirement for work persists.

2. Whether the DoPT Office Memorandum dated June 17, 2013, imposes an absolute five-year ceiling on the total tenure of a contractual employee across successive renewals.

The Court primarily applied the principle established in State of Haryana v. Piara Singh, which mandates that an ad hoc or temporary employee must not be replaced by another ad hoc or temporary employee to avoid administrative arbitrariness

This rule was reinforced by Narinder Singh Ahuja v. Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Shikha Jain v. Union of India, which held that even if a policy exists to outsource services, existing contractual employees cannot be terminated merely to be replaced by other contractual or outsourced staff

The Court also referenced Hargurpratap Singh v. State of Punjab and Rattan Lal v. State of Haryana to affirm that replacement of ad hoc staff can only be done through regular recruitment

The Court rejected the Petitioners' reliance on the DoPT OM dated June 17, 2013, noting that the five-year limit mentioned therein pertained to "market-driven compensation packages," whereas the Respondent’s appointment was under standard terms

furthermore, the Court interpreted the "five-year" clause as a limit on the duration of a single contract, not an embargo on renewals

On the facts, the Court observed that the Petitioners intended to fill the exact same post (Assistant Director, Entomology) with new contractual hires immediately after terminating the Respondent, who had seven years of unblemished service

The Court reasoned that such an action constitutes "unfair labour practice" and "arbitrariness," as the vacuum created by the Respondent's exit was not being filled by a regular appointee but by another temporary hand, which is prohibited by settled law

The High Court dismissed the writ petition in limine, upholding the Tribunal's decision

The Petitioners were directed to comply with the CAT's order to re-engage the Respondent within two weeks