Part-time employees are not entitled to regularization of service or parity in pay with regular employees.

The respondents were engaged as part-time workers operating overhead tanks within various local administrative bodies that were later merged into the Salem Corporation

They sought to have their employment regularized based on specific government guidelines issued in 2013

The appellant challenged a lower court's decision from 2019 which had granted relief to these workers, noting that the respondents lacked formal appointment orders and were never engaged as full-time staff

Whether part-time employees who were appointed without following standard recruitment rules or formal appointment orders are entitled to the benefit of regularisation of service

Secretary to Government, School Education Department v. R. Govindasamy, which dictates that part-time workers do not have a legal right to regularization as they are not subject to standard service regulations and are free to seek other employment

State of Karnataka v. Umadevi, which held that temporary or daily-wage employees do not possess a fundamental right to be absorbed into permanent service if their initial appointment bypassed constitutional requirements of equality in public recruitment

State of Rajasthan v. Daya Lal was cited to confirm that High Courts cannot direct the permanent continuance of part-time employees who do not hold sanctioned posts

The Court reasoned that the respondents were engaged only on a part-time basis and failed to produce any formal appointment orders to prove they were part of a regular cadre

By applying the Govindasamy and Umadevi precedents, the Court determined that because the respondents’ initial entry into service was not conducted through an open competitive process against sanctioned vacant posts, they could not claim parity with regular employees

The Court emphasized that sympathy or long years of service cannot override the absence of a legal right to regularization, especially for part-time roles which are inherently distinct from full-time government service

Consequently, the High Court set aside the previous writ order dated 09.04.2019 and allowed the appeal in favor of the Commissioner of Municipal Administration