J&K High Court Sets Aside Order Directing Remuneration to Contractual Planners After Contract Termination
A Division Bench found that experience certificates issued by the same officer who had discharged the professionals were managed to defraud the public exchequer, and reversed the Single Judge’s direction to pay remuneration up to 20 March 2020.
The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Srinagar has allowed a Letters Patent Appeal filed by the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir and set aside a Single Judge order that had directed payment of remuneration to contractual urban planning professionals up to 20 March 2020. The Division Bench of Justice Sanjeev Kumar and Justice Sanjay Parihar, pronouncing judgment on 30 May 2026, held that the respondents had failed to demonstrate that they performed any duties beyond the expiry of their respective service contracts. The Bench went further, finding that experience certificates relied upon by the writ Court had been issued in connivance with the very officer who had formally discharged the professionals, and that the documents were prepared to confer a wrongful benefit on the respondents at the cost of the public exchequer.
How the Professionals Were Hired and What Their Contracts Said
The Srinagar Development Authority (“SDA”) issued Advertisement Notification No. 02/SDA of 2017 dated 7 July 2017 inviting applications for hiring professionals in different fields for preparation of zonal plans of Srinagar city, purely on a contractual basis for 12 months. Separately, the Chief Town Planner, Town Planning Organisation, Kashmir (“CTPK”) issued a notification on 4 May 2017 for hiring subject specialists and professional experts for preparation of the Master Plan and Zonal Plans of Anantnag city, again on a purely contractual basis for 12 months.
The respondents applied, were selected by a Committee constituted by the Government in the Department of GAD, and were formally engaged. Vide order dated 16 November 2017, some respondents were hired as professionals on a temporary basis for preparation of zonal plans of the Srinagar Metropolitan Region. The CTPK hired another set of respondents for the Anantnag work vide order dated 29 June 2018. The Srinagar professionals were hired for 12 months running from March 2018 to February 2019. Their contract was subsequently extended for a further six months, taking it up to 31 August 2019, and they were paid remuneration through that extended period. The Anantnag professionals were hired for 12 months from July 2018 to June 2019 and were similarly paid for that period.
Conditions 6 and 8 of the SDA appointment order dated 16 November 2017 specifically provided that the engagement was for 12 months or till completion of the zonal plans, whichever was earlier, to take effect from the date of commencement of work.
The Discharge Circulars and the Respondents’ Counter-Claim
The then Chief Town Planner Kashmir, Fayaz Ahmad Khan, issued a circular dated 2 August 2019 informing all concerned, including the Srinagar contractual professionals, that their hired professional services would be deemed disengaged with effect from 1 September 2019. They were called upon to hand over all data and work accomplished with respect to the zonal plans of the Srinagar Metropolitan Region, along with surrendering laptops, computers, pen drives, and other hardware. A separate circular dated 18 June 2019 was issued in respect of the Anantnag professionals, informing them that their services would be deemed disengaged with effect from 1 July 2019.
Despite these two circulars, the respondents claimed in their writ petitions — filed on 18 May 2020 — that they had continued performing their duties and were still doing so on the date of filing. They sought remuneration for the period beyond their contractual term during which they alleged their services were utilised without payment.
What the Single Judge Found and Why the Division Bench Disagreed
The Single Judge, deciding WP(C) No. 1058/2021 and WP(C) No. 894/2021 by a common order dated 14 July 2025, allowed both writ petitions. The writ Court did not accept the appellants’ position that the respondents had performed no services after the expiry of their contracts. It placed strong reliance on two categories of material: first, a communication dated 27 August 2021 written by CTPK to the Principal Secretary, Housing and Urban Development Department, in which the then CTPK Iftikhar Ahmad Hakim stated that as per his office inquiry and record, the discharge circulars had not been served on the professionals and that these contractual professionals had continued up to 20 March 2020; and second, experience certificates appended by the respondents to their writ petitions, which appeared to show them performing duties till 8 June 2020. On this basis, the writ Court directed the appellants to release remuneration up to 20 March 2020 at the rate at which the respondents had been drawing it under their service contracts.
The Division Bench examined the same material and reached the opposite conclusion. On the experience certificates, the Bench pointed out a critical internal contradiction: the certificates had been issued by Fayaz Ahmad Khan, the same Chief Town Planner who had issued the twin discharge circulars. The Bench found it impossible to accept that an officer who had formally discharged the professionals could simultaneously certify that they were performing duties beyond the period of their discharge. The Bench characterised the certificates as having been “managed in connivance with the CTPK only with a view to defraud the public exchequer.”
On the 2021 communication from CTPK Iftikhar Ahmad Hakim, the Bench noted that the discharge circulars themselves clearly stated they were sent to all concerned, including the respondents, for information and compliance. The Bench was not persuaded that professionals working directly under the CTPK could have been unaware of circulars that pertained specifically to the discharge of their own services.
The Bench also took judicial notice of the conditions prevailing in the Kashmir valley after 5 August 2019 following the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic. Against that backdrop, the Bench found it difficult to accept that the respondents had continued performing duties under verbal orders beyond 31 August 2019 for the Srinagar group and beyond 30 June 2019 for the Anantnag group.
What the Bench found more plausible was a different sequence of events: the respondents had not submitted the complete data and equipment — laptops, computers, pen drives — at the time of their discharge, and only did so sometime in the middle of 2020. The experience certificates and departmental communications were then prepared to make this delayed submission of data appear as continued service, thereby staking a claim for remuneration for a period during which no duties had actually been performed. Despite repeated queries during the hearing, the respondents could not produce any order from a competent authority permitting them to perform duties beyond the contractual period.
The Legal Question the Bench Identified
The Bench framed the core question as whether the respondents had continued to perform their duties notwithstanding the two discharge circulars, and if so, whether they were entitled to remuneration and from which authority. The answer to the first limb determined everything: once the Bench concluded that continued performance had not been established, the question of entitlement to remuneration did not arise.
The Bench observed that the services of the respondents were governed entirely by written contracts. No competent authority had extended those contracts. The discharge circulars issued by CTPK Fayaz Ahmad Khan constituted a formal termination of the contractual relationship. The respondents had not been able to point to any written order, verbal or otherwise reduced to writing, authorising continued engagement.
Outcome
The Division Bench allowed LPA No. 257/2025, set aside the judgment of the Single Judge dated 14 July 2025, and dismissed the underlying writ petitions. The order is marked as speaking and reportable.