Illegally appointed daily-wage employees have no legal right to regularization or to challenge outsourcing of services.

The petitioners were engaged as daily-wage employees in 2010 and 2013 on Collector rates.

They challenged orders dated January 29, 2026, which transferred their services to a private outsourcing agency, Kamthen Security Service, to be absorbed as Multi-Skilled Group-D workers.

The petitioners argued this transfer illegally deprived them of their rights as daily-wage employees.

The State contended that the petitioners were "back-door entrants" appointed without public advertisement or employment exchange sponsorship, thus lacking any legal right to regularization.

1. Whether the petitioners are entitled to seek regularization of their services under the prevailing constitutional scheme.

2. Whether the services of the petitioners can be legally transferred to a private agency.

The Court primarily applied the principles established by the Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi (2006) 4 SCC 1.

This precedent distinguishes between "illegal appointments" (made in violation of Article 14 and recruitment rules) and "irregular appointments" (where some procedure was followed but with minor lapses).

The rule mandates that only irregular appointments of qualified persons in sanctioned posts who served for over ten years without court intervention may be considered for a one-time regularization measure.

It further holds that daily-wage or contractual employees do not acquire a vested right to permanency solely through the passage of time.

The Court analyzed the petitioners' employment history against the Uma Devi framework and found that their initial appointments did not follow any procedure known to law, such as public competition or adherence to recruitment rules.

Consequently, the Court classified their engagements as "illegal appointments" rather than "irregular" ones.

Since the petitioners failed to meet the criteria for "irregular" status—specifically the requirement of being appointed against sanctioned posts through a transparent selection process—they were found to have no legal standing to demand regularization or to block the State's administrative decision to move them to an outsourcing model.

The Court answered both issues in the negative, affirming that illegally appointed daily wagers have no right to permanency or to challenge a transfer to a private agency.

The writ petition was dismissed.