Retrospective regularization cannot precede availability of a sanctioned post without specific authorization.

The appellant was engaged as a daily-wage employee in 1980 and posted as a Wireless Operator in 1983.

He claimed to have participated in a selection process in July 1987 and to have continuously worked against an available vacancy.

A post of Wireless Operator was transferred to the Bansagar Project office on 1 August 2002, and the appellant was regularized from 6 August 2002.

In 2007, the then Chief Engineer retrospectively treated his service as regular from 22 July 1987; the respondents cancelled that retrospective benefit in 2011 and directed recovery of the alleged excess payment.

The Single Judge dismissed his writ petition, and the appellant challenged that decision in this appeal.

1. Whether the appellant had an enforceable right to retrospective regularization from 22 July 1987, based on his claimed participation in the selection process, continuous service, and availability of a vacancy.

2. Whether the respondents’ orders withdrawing retrospective regularization and fixing the effective date as 6 August 2002 were liable to be set aside.

The Court applied the principles that regularization must be supported by an available sanctioned post and a legal entitlement under the applicable service conditions; participation in a selection process, without proof of selection and entitlement to appointment against such a post, does not itself create a right to retrospective regularization.

Nor does equality require continuation of a benefit not shown to have been granted according to law.

The appellant relied on *Jaggo Bai v. Union of India* and *Shripal Jain*, but the Court held that those authorities did not dispense with the need to establish entitlement under the applicable rules and facts.

No statute or specific service rule was identified in the judgment.

The Court found that the appellant’s regularization from 6 August 2002 followed the transfer of a Wireless Operator post to the Bansagar Project office on 1 August 2002.

The 2007 order granting retrospective regularization cited no specific authorization for doing so, and the transfer letter did not provide for retrospective regularization.

The appellant’s alleged participation in the 1987 selection and his continuous service did not establish that he had been selected or was entitled to appointment against a sanctioned post at that time.

The Court therefore found no basis to invalidate the 2011 orders withdrawing the retrospective benefit.

The writ appeal was dismissed, leaving the appellant’s regularization effective from 6 August 2002.