Temporary Employees Not Participating In Selection Have No Locus Standi To Challenge Regular Recruitment Or Reservation Roster: Punjab & Haryana High Court

"Apprehension of displacement from a temporary assignment upon the joining of regularly selected candidates does not constitute a legal grievance or confer a vested right to assail the selection process." Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that temporary or ad-hoc employees who do not participate in a regular selection process lack locus standi under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to challenge recruitment advertisements or the determination of reservation roster points.

A single bench of Justice Harpreet Singh Brar observed that an apprehension of displacement upon the induction of regular appointees does not create a judicially enforceable right, holding that "no one can seek a writ of mandamus without a vested legal right, and that there must exist a judicially enforceable as well as a legally protected right, before a person claiming to suffer a legal grievance can invoke the writ jurisdiction of the Court."

The petitioners, serving as temporary Resource Persons and Assistant Professors engaged through walk-in interviews at Indira Gandhi University, Meerpur, approached the High Court challenging Advertisement Nos. 10/2023 to 55/2023 issued for recruiting regular teaching faculty. They sought a writ of mandamus directing the University to prepare its reservation roster afresh by treating individual departments as a unit prior to January 2020 and the entire University as a single unit thereafter. Asserting that the University had committed serious discrepancies in ear-marking roster points against its sanctioned cadre strength, the petitioners prayed for restraining the authorities from filling up the posts until a verified roster was finalized.

The primary question before the Court was whether temporary employees, who did not participate in the regular selection process, possess the requisite locus standi under Article 226 of the Constitution of India to challenge a recruitment advertisement and reservation roster points. The Court was also called upon to determine whether temporary or ad-hoc appointees hold any vested legal right to stall regular public recruitment to protect their stop-gap engagements.

No Writ Of Mandamus Lies In The Absence Of A Subsisting Legal Right

Examining the maintainability of the writ petition, the Court turned to the landmark decision of the Supreme Court in Mani Subrat Jain v. State of Haryana (1977), which established that the existence of an enforceable legal right is a condition precedent for seeking a writ of mandamus. A person can claim to be legally aggrieved only when denied a right by an authority that owes a corresponding statutory or legal duty.

The bench emphasized that the petitioners were engaged purely on a temporary basis as resource persons on consolidated salaries and had not even applied pursuant to the impugned recruitment notifications. Consequently, they could not demonstrate any breach of a legal duty owed to them by the University.

"It is elementary though it is to be restated that no one can ask for a mandamus without a legal right. There must be a judicially enforceable right as well as a legally protected right before one suffering a legal grievance can ask for a mandamus."

Protection Against Ad-Hoc Replacement Does Not Bar Regular Appointments

The Court analyzed the scope of protection available to temporary appointees under the Supreme Court's ruling in Hargurpratap Singh v. State of Punjab (2007), which laid down that ad-hoc employees cannot be displaced by another ad-hoc arrangement. Justice Brar clarified that this principle operates solely to prevent arbitrary replacement by another temporary arrangement and does not confer any license to impede regular selections.

The bench pointed out that while temporary appointees may be protected from arbitrary substitution and entitled to the minimum of the pay scale, they acquire no entitlement to hinder the employer from initiating a regular, open recruitment drive conducted in accordance with law.

"The said judgment does not confer any right upon the petitioners to prevent the respondent-University from undertaking regular recruitment in accordance with law."

No Concept Of Adverse Possession Or Holding Over In Service Jurisprudence

Addressing the petitioners' attempt to halt the appointments of selected candidates, the Court placed strong reliance on the Supreme Court's authoritative pronouncement in State of Orissa v. Mamata Mohanty (2011). The Court reiterated that public employment under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India mandates open advertisements to enable all eligible citizens to compete on merits.

The bench stressed that long continuation on a temporary or ad-hoc post cannot mature into an indefeasible right to hold the office, nor does service law recognize any concept akin to adverse possession of a post.

"The concept of adverse possession of lien on post or holding over are not applicable in service jurisprudence. Therefore, continuation of a person wrongly appointed on post does not create any right in his favour."

"Being non-participants in the recruitment process, no legal right of the petitioners with respect to the ear-marking of roster points across different categories has been infringed, nor does the respondent-University owe any corresponding legal duty to the petitioners to withhold regular recruitment so as to prolong their stop-gap engagement."

Non-Participants In Selection Lack Locus Standi To Challenge Roster Allocation

Applying the settled principles of administrative and service law, the bench held that non-participants in an open selection process cannot maintain a challenge against the allocation of roster points across reserved categories. The University owes no obligation to prolong temporary arrangements at the expense of statutory recruitment procedures.

The bench noted that the fear of termination upon the joining of regularly selected candidates is purely a consequence of the temporary nature of their tenure and cannot be elevated into a justiciable grievance under Article 226.

"Apprehension of displacement from a temporary assignment upon the joining of regularly selected candidates does not constitute a legal grievance or confer a vested right to assail the selection process."

Writ Relief Cannot Be Granted Dehors Foundational Pleadings

The Court highlighted that the petitioners had not specifically challenged the finalized reservation roster or the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) approvals on record within their foundational pleadings. Citing State of Orissa v. Mamata Mohanty (2011), along with earlier precedents including M/s. Trojan & Co. v. RM. N.N. Nagappa Chettiar (1953) and State of Maharashtra v. Hindustan Construction Company Ltd. (2010), the bench reaffirmed that a writ court cannot grant reliefs that travel beyond the specific pleadings raised by the parties.

Because the petitioners failed to lay foundational challenges against the verified roster and did not disclose any participation in the selection, the Court concluded that granting relief would run contrary to established jurisdictional norms.

Dismissing the civil writ petition, the High Court held that temporary resource persons who do not participate in an open recruitment process lack locus standi to challenge recruitment advertisements or roster point allocations under Article 226 of the Constitution of India. The ruling reaffirms that ad-hoc engagements confer no vested right to obstruct regular public employment processes aimed at filling vacancies on merits.

Date of Decision: 07 October 2026