Former Contract Lab Assistants’ Challenge To Nursing Orderly Promotions Fails: CAT Says Contract Work Created No Right To JMLT Posts

The applicants had worked as Laboratory Assistants on a contractual basis with the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

The 2011 Recruitment Regulations provided for recruitment to Laboratory Assistant posts through direct recruitment and promotion, including promotion from specified non-technical cadres.

Regulations published on 8 January 2022 replaced the post with Junior Medical Laboratory Technologist (JMLT) and provided for direct recruitment.

The applicants challenged an ESIC memorandum dated 2 December 2022 directing departmental promotion committees to fill vacancies arising up to 7 January 2022 under the 2011 Regulations, as well as a promotion order dated 23 December 2022.

They sought consideration for JMLT posts based on their qualifications.

The respondents objected that the applicants lacked standing and had not applied in subsequent recruitment processes.

Section 19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 permits a person aggrieved by an order within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction to seek redress; the Tribunal applied the principle that a stranger to a service matter cannot challenge a recruitment or promotion decision as a public-interest claim.

The Tribunal noted the rule in State of Himachal Pradesh v. Raj Kumar that the proposition in Y.V. Rangaiah v. J. Sreenivasa Rao—that vacancies arising before amendment are necessarily governed by the old rules—does not state the correct general law.

It nevertheless treated the use of the 2011 Regulations for the relevant pre-amendment vacancies as a one-time policy measure for regular in-service employees.

Contractual service, without more, does not create a vested right to appointment to a regular cadre post.

The Tribunal held that the applicants’ contractual engagement did not confer a right to regular appointment or make them employees with a vested interest in the promotion process.

Because they were not serving departmental employees and had not applied for the advertised JMLT recruitments, they were not aggrieved persons entitled to challenge the promotions; their challenge therefore amounted to an impermissible public-interest claim in service matters.

Although the Tribunal recognised that Rangaiah did not establish the governing general rule, it accepted the respondents’ reliance on the earlier Regulations as a one-time measure for vacancies arising before the amended Regulations took effect.

The applicants’ failure to participate in the later recruitment processes also meant that no direction to consider their qualifications was warranted.

It held that the applicants lacked standing to challenge the 2 December 2022 memorandum and the 23 December 2022 promotion order, and had established no entitlement to consideration for JMLT posts.

No order as to costs was made.