From a 2008 advertisement to a daily wage of Rs 1,200: the Tripura High Court orders regularisation of a contractual Tripura University employee after 15 years and calls both the 2016 re-designation and the 2022 order arbitrary. Reinstatement is due within a month, with regularisation from February 2, 2016.
Agartala: Setting aside a Single Judge’s dismissal of her writ petition, a Division Bench of the Tripura High Court has directed Tripura University to regularise and reinstate a contractual BBA lecturer, holding that her re-designation and the later daily-wage order were arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution [Smt. Jayanti Bhattacharjee v. The Tripura University and Others].
Writ Appeal No. 60 of 2024 was allowed on September 17, 2026 by Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit. It was filed against the Single Judge’s judgment of January 9, 2024 in WP(C) No. 940 of 2022.
What the University must now do
The University is to reinstate her as Assistant Placement Officer in the Business Management Department within one month, and to regularise her services in that post with effect from February 2, 2016. The Bench did not order regularisation as a Lecturer, because she had not taught for more than the last ten years; it directed regularisation in the post she has held since 2016 instead.
She is entitled to the regular scale of pay and allowances for the post, and her service from February 4, 2009 counts as qualifying service for pension and retirement benefits. Costs of Rs 25,000 are payable by the University within four weeks.
Why Umadevi did not decide the case
The Division Bench found that the Single Judge had erred in leaning on Umadevi (3). An advertisement and an interview preceded her selection, so she had not entered by the back door, and the State and its instrumentalities are expected to act as model employers. On that footing it held:
Therefore the judgment in Uma Devi (3) (1 supra) has no application.
The University argued that her post was not sanctioned. The Bench found nothing in its records to show that the BBA posts had been approved or were governed by any rules. An institution that ran the programme through contractual lecturers, it said, could not take advantage of its own failure to create regular posts. Drawing on Jaggo and other decisions, the Bench concluded that her engagement:
cannot be said to be one not against a sanctioned post
The 2016 move and the 2022 order
Her qualifications, the Bench held, are to be judged as on the 2008 advertisement and not by later UGC or AICTE norms. The University had not produced the rules governing the 2008 selection and was estopped by its own advertisement; the Bench also noted that the appointment followed a genuine selection process with an interview committee. On the 2016 re-designation, the Court said:
without any valid reason, arbitrarily and illegally, the appellant was re-designated as Asst. Placement Officer.
The Bench was not persuaded that the University’s later explanation, that the BBA course had been discontinued, was the real reason for the re-designation. The September 30, 2022 order fared no better: it gave no reasons and was passed without notice or hearing, in violation of natural justice and Article 14.
From the 2008 advertisement to the Division Bench
The University advertised in 2008 for a contractual Lecturer in its BBA programme. She was selected after an interview, joined in February 2009 and had her contract renewed every year. In February 2016 she was re-designated Assistant Placement Officer (Contractual), no reason was stated, and she protested.
She continued until 2022, when her salary stopped. An order of September 30, 2022 then fixed her remuneration at a daily wage of Rs 1,200 per working day. While her petition was pending, the High Court suspended that order, directed that her status not be altered and ordered payment of arrears and salary. The Single Judge nonetheless dismissed the petition, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3) that purely contractual appointees have no right to regularisation.
Umadevi and Jaggo, briefly
Umadevi, a Constitution Bench ruling of 2006 reported at (2006) 4 SCC 1, held that appointments made outside the constitutional scheme of public employment confer no right to regularisation, while allowing a one-time measure for employees who had completed ten years of continuous service in sanctioned posts. In Jaggo v. Union of India, decided in December 2024 by Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B. Varale, the Supreme Court cautioned that Umadevi is often misapplied to deny legitimate claims of long-serving employees, and criticised public bodies for keeping workers on temporary terms for years.
What the ruling shows
Contractual staff often run core programmes at public institutions for years, and meet Umadevi when they ask for security. By applying the Supreme Court’s later caution in Jaggo, the ruling shows that where a person was picked through an advertised selection, has served for years and does work essential to the institution, the court will look past the contractual label to the reality of the employment.
It also shows that an employer cannot downgrade a long-serving employee’s status or pay without reasons, notice and a hearing, whatever the terms of the original engagement.
Case Title: Smt. Jayanti Bhattacharjee v. The Tripura University and Others [W.A. No. 60 of 2024]
Bench: Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit, Tripura High Court
Date of Judgment: September 17, 2026
Appearances: Senior Advocate Somik Deb with Advocates Jishan Samed, Adwitiya Chakraborty and Rijuka Roy Barman for the appellant; Senior Advocate Debalay Bhattacharya with Advocates Agniva Chakraborty and Tapas Kr. Debbarma for the respondents.