Legislative Act nullifying binding judicial mandates on service benefits and seniority is unconstitutional.

For decades, the State of Himachal Pradesh engaged in the practice of appointing employees, including teachers, on ad-hoc, tenure, or "contract" bases against sanctioned posts to circumvent regular recruitment procedures and deny service benefits.

In multiple prior litigations (e.g., Taj Mohammad, Lekh Ram, Joga Singh), the High Court and Supreme Court held that where contract appointments were made following the procedure prescribed in Recruitment and Promotion (R&P) Rules through designated agencies, such employees were entitled to seniority, increments, and pensionary benefits from the date of their initial appointment upon regularization.

Following these judicial mandates, the State Legislature enacted the Himachal Pradesh Recruitment and Conditions of Service of Government Employees Act, 2024 (Act No. 23 of 2025).

The Act retrospectively redefined "Government employee" to include only regular appointees [Section 2(d)], declared that entry into "public service" occurs only upon regularization [Section 3], and mandated that previous contract service cannot be counted for seniority or increments [Section 6].

Section 8 sought to retrospectively substitute the words "on contract basis" with "by regularization" in all R&P Rules notified since 2003, effectively attempting to nullify the legal basis of the aforementioned court judgments.

1. Whether the State Legislature has the competence to enact a law that directly nullifies or overrules final judicial mandates and mandamus issued by competent courts.

2. Whether the Act violates Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution by creating a pre-service engagement category outside the constitutional scheme and denying equality in public employment.

3. Whether the Act’s retrospective provisions constitute a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers and the Rule of Law.

The court primarily applied the doctrine of Separation of Powers and the Rule of Law as basic features of the Constitution, which prohibit the legislature from directly overruling judicial decisions.

Article 309 regarding the regulation of recruitment and conditions of service, noting it must conform to the constitutional scheme.

The principle from Direct Recruit Class II Engineering Officers’ Association v. State of Maharashtra, holding that officiating service following an appointment made per rules must count toward seniority.

The court relied on S.R. Bhagwat v. State of Mysore and Dr. Jaya Thakur v. Union of India, which established that while the legislature can remove the basis of a judgment by curing a defect in the law, it cannot nullify a specific mandamus or "statutorily overrule" a court's interpretation without altering the underlying circumstances.

The court observed that the Act did not seek to cure any "defects" in existing law, as the prior judgments were based on the interpretation of the constitutional scheme and R&P Rules, not on any statutory invalidity.

By retrospectively substituting "contract" with "regularization," the Legislature attempted to "statutorily overrule" judicial findings that treated contract appointees as regular employees from day one.

The court found that Section 3 of the Act created a "pre-regularization engagement" period which is absent from the constitutional scheme, effectively ousting the jurisdiction of Article 309 for the initial period of work.

The Act was deemed manifestly arbitrary under Article 14 because it selectively targeted contract appointees from 2003 onwards while exempting those from 1996 to 2003 who had already received court-mandated benefits.

The court dismissed the State’s plea of "financial constraint," ruling that once a legal right is established by judicial decision, the State cannot use legislative power to evade its role as a "Model Employer."

The Act was thus found to be a "colourable exercise of power" aimed solely at defying binding judicial pronouncements.

The Legislature cannot override a specific mandamus issued by a court by enacting retrospective legislation that merely seeks to evade judicial interpretation without fundamentally changing the underlying law’s character.

The court quashed the Act and all consequential orders (withdrawals of promotion or seniority) based upon it, and directed the State to ensure that the benefits granted to employees via previous court judgments are fully extended within three months.