Three years on JNNURM contracts, no sanctioned post: Bombay HC refuses permanency to Pune engineers

Justice Sandeep V. Marne dismissed the writ petition of six Junior Engineers engaged from the waiting list of a 2005 recruitment, holding that 240 days of service cannot compel a municipal corporation to create posts and that the Supreme Court exceptions for long service need about ten years.

Six engineers who sat the Pune Municipal Corporation's recruitment test, missed the select list, and then worked on a central urban renewal project asked the courts to make them permanent. The Bombay High Court has said no. They had served about three years, and the project had no sanctioned posts.

Justice Sandeep V. Marne dismissed the writ petition on 2 November 2026. It challenged a 9 March 2016 judgment of the Industrial Court at Pune that had rejected the engineers' unfair labour practice complaints.

There was no order as to costs. The judge found the Industrial Court's decision to be unexceptionable and the petition devoid of merit.

Passed over, then hired on contract

Pune Municipal Corporation advertised posts on 25 September 2005, including Junior Engineer (Civil). The six petitioners took a written test on 25 June 2006 and applied for interviews on 17 March 2007.

The Corporation prepared a select list of 147 candidates. None of the petitioners was on it, but their names appeared on a waiting list.

On 6 February 2008 the office of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission asked for 35 Junior Engineers. None of the 147 selected candidates wanted a contract job there, so the Corporation turned to the waiting list.

The petitioners were engaged on contract for six months at consolidated wages of Rs 5,500 a month, and the engagements were renewed from time to time. They gave start dates ranging from 23 February to 11 April 2008.

From complaint to termination to reinstatement

The six, with one other person, filed complaints under Section 28 of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971. They cited Items 5, 6, 9 and 10 of Schedule IV and sought permanency from the date they completed 240 days of service.

They also asked for pay equal to regular Junior Engineers and for the same treatment as candidates appointed under the 2005 advertisement. On 30 July 2010 the Industrial Court directed the Corporation to keep them until regularly selected candidates were appointed.

The Corporation terminated them by order of 19 March 2011. They fought the termination separately, and the Labour Court rejected their reference by an award of 30 May 2024.

On 8 May 2026 this High Court set aside that award and the termination orders. It directed reinstatement subject to availability of work, without full back wages, with 25 per cent of last drawn wages as lump-sum compensation. It gave continuity of service only for retiral and pension benefits, expressly without any right to permanency or regularisation.

This writ petition had been disposed of on 31 January 2023 with liberty to revive it if the terminations were set aside. A review order of 14 July 2026 allowed revival, and the petition was revived on 8 October 2026.

The Corporation has taken the 8 May judgment to the Supreme Court. The special leave petition is pending, and the petitioners have not been reinstated.

The petitioners' case and the Corporation's

Advocate Nitin A. Kulkarni appeared for the petitioners. He said they were not back-door entrants because they had taken part in the 2005 selection and met the qualifications. After 240 days they were entitled to permanency, he argued, under Clause 4-C of the Model Standing Orders.

He relied on the Supreme Court's rulings in Pandurang Sitaram Jadhav, Bhartiya Kamgar Karmachari Mahasangh v. Jet Airways and Jaggo v. Union of India, and on a Division Bench ruling in Madhukar Bhavanrao Sadgir. He also said vacant posts existed and the Standing Committee could create posts.

Advocate Abhijit P. Kulkarni appeared for the Corporation with Abhishek Roy, Gourav Shahane and Shweta Shah. He argued the complaint was barred by res judicata, because the petitioners had withdrawn a writ petition for the same relief on 23 June 2010.

The petitioners, he said, were temporary hands under JNNURM, and the State had sanctioned no permanent posts for the project. He relied on Gopal Malba Alapure v. Municipal Commissioner, Pune Municipal Corporation, a Division Bench order refusing permanency to identically placed colleagues.

One year of service, then three

Justice Marne first fixed the length of service. When the complaints were filed in July 2009 the petitioners had served only about one year, and even by termination in March 2011 it was about three years.

The judge framed the issue in his own words.

“The issue for consideration is whether Petitioners could have sought regularization in service on the strength of 1 year service by approaching the Industrial Tribunal and even if their total service of 3 years in JNNURM project is taken into consideration, whether they are entitled to permanency.” (para 14)

Why 240 days is not enough

On Clause 4-C, the judge held that a State instrumentality such as a municipal corporation cannot be made to grant permanency on completing 240 days. Regularly sanctioned posts are needed, and an industrial court cannot create them indirectly by ordering permanency.

He relied on the Division Bench in Municipal Council Tirora v. Tulsidas Baliram Bindhade. That ruling says a workman cannot invoke Clause 4-C without a vacant sanctioned post, and that appointments outside the constitutional scheme are void from the start.

Completing 240 days, Justice Marne said, "can never, by itself, constitute a ground" (para 22) for directing permanency in a State instrumentality. Only exceptional cases, such as colleagues in the same position having been regularised, can justify such a direction as affirmative action under Section 30 of the Act.

Umadevi and its ten-year exception

The judge went through the Constitution Bench ruling in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3). Long tenure does not by itself entitle a temporary worker to regularisation, and High Courts should not order absorption unless the recruitment itself followed the constitutional scheme.

The Supreme Court did carve out one exception, in paragraph 53. Irregularly appointed, duly qualified persons who have worked for ten years or more in duly sanctioned posts, without court orders, are to be considered as a one-time measure.

Justice Marne noted that Casteribe itself accepts that creating posts is an executive function. The courts cannot arrogate it, and permanency cannot be granted where no such posts exist.

He read Maharashtra SRTC v. Casteribe and Hari Nandan Prasad v. FCI alongside it. Industrial courts keep their power under Section 30 of the 1971 Act to order permanency where unfair labour practice is shown and posts exist. If no posts exist, a direction for regularisation is impermissible.

The judge added that a municipal corporation cannot create posts without prior State sanction. That check exists so that corporations do not sanction excessive posts that would crowd out their civic functions.

In University of Mumbai v. Sunil Tanda Pagare, a recent Bombay High Court ruling, the judge noted, permanency was distinguished from regularisation. Permanency suits private employers who have no posts to create and no pensions to pay.

In State bodies, he said, a permanent employee cannot be retrenched without proven misconduct, and creating posts brings salary revisions and pension liabilities. Municipal corporations that spend most of their revenue on salaries, the passage observes, leave little for the duties they exist to perform.

A project with no posts

The petitioners fell short on every count, the judge held. They had not served ten years. They had also worked on JNNURM, which is funded by the Central Government, is not permanent in nature and needs temporary hiring.

The petitioners were therefore project employees on contract with no vacant sanctioned posts. Nitin Kulkarni's reliance on a reservation roster for July to September 2010 did not help, because the roster only showed backlog vacancies in reserved categories. File notings, the judge said, showed the engagements were under the JNNURM project.

The Supreme Court judgments cited against him

Justice Marne dealt with each authority. In Jaggo, Vinod Kumar, Raj Karan Singh, Dharam Singh and Shripal, he noted, the Supreme Court had considered a decade or more of continuous service. The common thread was service over a decade, and the petitioners had about three years.

He found Pandurang Sitaram Jadhav distinguishable because that complainant had worked since 1983, and a two-judge decision could not depart from a Constitution Bench in any event. Jet Airways concerned a private employer, not an instrumentality of the State.

The Division Bench in Madhukar Sadgir had itself limited permanency to those with ten years or more. The judge applied the same yardstick of at least ten years, as he said University of Mumbai v. Sunil Tanda Pagare and a Division Bench ruling in Film and Television Institute of India v. Javed Rasul Banedar had done.

The reinstatement judgment did not give permanency

Nitin Kulkarni argued that the 8 May 2026 judgment had already conferred permanency. The judge pointed to paragraph 43(viii) of that judgment, which says continuity of service shall not confer any right of permanency, regularisation, seniority or promotional benefits.

The review order of 14 July 2026, he said, did no more than let the petitioners apply to revive this petition. It did not delete that direction.

He also held that the petitioners could not count service after termination towards permanency. Umadevi excludes those who continued in service by virtue of interim court orders from the ten-year exception.

The petitioners had tried to distinguish the earlier Division Bench order refusing permanency to their colleagues, saying it did not involve unfair labour practice. Even if that were correct, the judge said, he could not record any unfair labour practice by the Corporation under Item 6 of Schedule IV.

He pointed to the line of rulings under which "for years" does not mean a couple of years of temporary service. Treating two or three years as enough, he said, would turn the ratio of Umadevi on its head.

Order

The judgment does not decide the Corporation's objection that the complaints were barred by res judicata.

The writ petition was dismissed. There was no order as to costs.

The judgment was reserved on 22 October 2026 and pronounced on 2 November 2026.