Three HLL Contract Workers Lose Bid To Continue After Company Ends Its Own Marketing Of Women’s Health Products

The applicants were engaged by HLL Lifecare Limited on fixed-term contracts, renewed from time to time; their latest renewal ran from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026.

On 27 April 2026, HLL informed them that its Women’s Health Care Division had entered into a strategic business alliance with Themis Medicare Limited and that HLL would cease its own marketing of the division’s products after 13 May 2026.

Termination letters followed on 28 April 2026.

The applicants challenged their discontinuance and sought continuation and regularisation. Interim protection against discontinuance was initially granted, later vacated, and the order vacating it was recalled before the OA was heard on merits.

HLL stated that Themis had offered the applicants employment, which they did not accept.

The Tribunal relied on the principle that successive renewals and length of service do not, by themselves, convert a contractual engagement into a right to continuation or regularisation.

It also relied on State of Haryana v. Suman Dutta, (2000) 10 SCC 311, and State of U.P. v. Sandeep Kumar Balmiki, (2009) 17 SCC 555, for the principle that interim relief should not effectively grant the final relief sought or permit continuation in service after termination pending adjudication.

Air India Ltd. v. Aditya Beri, 2012 SCC OnLine Del 3014, was cited in support of that interim-relief principle.

The Tribunal also followed the decision of the Allahabad Bench in OA No. 665/2026, which had dismissed a similar claim arising from the same business arrangement.

No statute was identified as governing the decision.

The Tribunal found the applicants’ contractual engagements had been discontinued as part of HLL’s decision to cease its own marketing of Women’s Health Care Division products under the strategic business arrangement with Themis.

It treated the Allahabad Bench’s decision on the same controversy as directly applicable and relied on its conclusion that contractual service and repeated renewals did not establish an entitlement to continuation or regularisation.

The Tribunal also noted that Themis had offered the applicants employment, which they had not joined.

On those grounds, it found no sufficient basis to interfere with the discontinuance or grant the relief claimed.

It made no order as to costs and closed any pending miscellaneous applications.