Substitutes engaged by regular Gramin Dak Sevaks have no legal right to regularization or permanent appointment.

The applicant was engaged intermittently as a substitute Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) across various post offices (PPL town ship SO, IOCL Paradip SO, APRC SO, and Bhutmundai BO) between June 2012 and August 2020.

These engagements occurred in short spells (ranging from 7 to 161 days) specifically to fill in during the leave periods of regular GDS incumbents.

The applicant challenged an order dated 18.04.2022, seeking a direction for the respondents to engage him as a substitute and regularize his services in any vacant post.

The respondents contended that substitutes are provided by regular GDS occupants at their own risk/responsibility and are not departmental employees recruited through due process.

1. Whether a person engaged purely as a substitute by a regular GDS employee on a "spell basis" acquires a legal right to seek regularization or permanent engagement in the Postal Department.

2. Whether the applicant was ever engaged by following the formal recruitment procedure mandated for regular GDS appointments.

Substitutes engaged by regular GDS employees at their "own risk and responsibility" do not have any right to claim absorption or regularization in the department.

Working for 180 days or more as a substitute does not automatically entitle an individual to regularization, as established in Union of India Ors. v. Debika Guha Ors., AIR 2000 SC 3522 (2).

A substitute engaged for short periods in stop-gap arrangements lacks the status of a permanent employee recruited under GDS rules, per Prasant Kumar Srivastava v. UOI Ors. (2012: AHC:84284-DB).

The Tribunal analyzed the nature of the applicant’s service and found it to be non-continuous and intermittent, consisting of brief spells to replace GDS employees on leave.

The court observed that the applicant failed to produce evidence showing he was recruited via a formal departmental process; instead, his engagement was a private arrangement permitted by the rules where the regular incumbent is responsible for the substitute.

The Tribunal distinguished the applicant's reliance on Jaggo v. UOI Ors. (2025), noting the facts were distinct from the present case.

Applying the Debika Guha and Satyaban Behera precedents, the Tribunal reasoned that since no right accrued to a substitute on "spell basis," the claim for regularization was legally unsustainable.

The Tribunal dismissed the Original Application (O.A. No. 260/00366 of 2023) and quashed no part of the impugned order, affirming that the applicant's prior intermittent service created no entitlement to a permanent post.

No costs were awarded.