Regularisation of contract faculty jobs to await govt plea: Telangana HC
Hyderabad: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday made it clear that the regularisation of services of 5,544 contract faculty working in junior, degree and polytechnic colleges will be subject to the outcome of a petition challenging the state government's decision to introduce a clause in 2016 to an existing Act to regularise the contract employees.
The 5,544 staff include 2,908 junior lecturers and 184 junior lecturers in the vocational stream, 251 degree lecturers and 390 polytechnic lecturers, all of whom were to be regularised through GO 38 dated April 30, issued by the higher education department.
The division bench of the High Court issued interim orders in the petition filed by several qualified employees, challenging the amendment of the Telangana (Regulation of Appointments to Public Services and Rationalisation of Staff Pattern and Pat Structure) Act, 1994, by inserting Section 10-A vide GO 16 concerning finance department on February 26, 2016, by which the government respondents sought to regularise the appointments made on contract basis.
The petitioners challenged the amendment in the High Court in February 2023, following which the High Court issued notices to the government to submit its contention. While the deadlock remained, the finance department issued orders to commence the regularisation of 5,544 contract faculty.
As the same was brought to the High Court’s notice by B. Ramulu, the counsel for the petitioners, the court issued interim orders stating that the said regularisation of contract employees was subject to the outcome of the petition challenging the addition of Section 10-A to the Telangana (Regulation of Appointments to Public Services and Rationalization of Staff Pattern and Pat Structure) Act.
Section 10-A mentions that the government may regularise the services of the persons appointed on a contract basis against the sanctioned posts in the government, subject to the fulfilment of conditions.
