BIFR scheme absorption of surplus employees prevails where placement was already completed before a later State law

Where a sanctioned BIFR scheme records that the modalities for placement of identified surplus employees were completed before sanction, those employees are treated as already absorbed in Government service. On that footing, a later State enactment prohibiting absorption did not apply to the employees covered by the scheme, because the placement had already been completed and could not be unsettle by the subsequent law. The broader constitutional questions on legislative competence, promissory estoppel, and the overriding effect of the BIFR framework were left open.

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Issues: Whether the surplus employees covered by the BIFR scheme had already been validly absorbed in Government departments so that the later State legislation prohibiting absorption had no application to them.

Analysis: The scheme sanctioned by the BIFR recorded that the Government had completed the modalities for placement of 1,486 employees in various Government departments and State level public enterprises, and that the transfer and placement of the identified employees would be completed before sanction of the scheme. On that basis, the Court treated the placement as complete and accepted the finding that the concerned employees stood absorbed in Government service. In that view, the later State Act and the challenge based on its validity did not affect the employees covered by the sanctioned scheme. The Court therefore found it unnecessary to decide the broader constitutional questions concerning legislative competence, promissory estoppel, or the overriding effect of the BIFR framework, and left those questions open.

Conclusion: The later State enactment did not apply to the employees covered by the sanctioned BIFR scheme, and the appeals failed.

Ratio Decidendi: Where a sanctioned BIFR scheme records completion of the modalities for placement of identified employees before sanction, the employees are treated as already absorbed, and a subsequent State law cannot unsettle that completed position in relation to them.

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