Statutory recruitment rules govern public appointments: ad hoc lecturers could not be regularised outside the prescribed selection process.

Statutory recruitment rules for lecturer posts were held to govern the field exclusively, so executive power could not relax the prescribed mode of appointment or regularise ad hoc appointees outside direct recruitment or permitted promotion. Regularisation through the Public Service Commission was also invalid because it created a third mode of recruitment inconsistent with the rules and the constitutional requirement of equal public employment. The proposed chain system of year-wise vacancy-based recruitment was likewise unsustainable, as it would distort open competition by excluding eligible candidates available at the time of advertisement. Recruitment had to proceed through the Commission in accordance with the rules, with ad hoc appointees retained only until duly selected candidates were appointed.

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Issues: (i) Whether the State Government had power to relax the recruitment rules and regularise ad hoc appointments to lecturer posts without recruitment through the Public Service Commission; (ii) Whether the direction requiring regularisation through the Public Service Commission was valid; (iii) Whether the suggested chain system of year-wise vacancy notification and recruitment was legally sustainable.

Issue (i): Whether the State Government had power to relax the recruitment rules and regularise ad hoc appointments to lecturer posts without recruitment through the Public Service Commission

Analysis: The recruitment rules prescribed direct recruitment, or promotion where permitted, as the exclusive modes of appointment. Persons appointed on ad hoc basis were expressly excluded from membership of the service. The power to relax age qualification could not be extended to relaxation of the recruitment process itself. Once statutory rules governed the field, executive power under the general constitutional provisions could only supplement, and not supplant, those rules. Ad hoc appointments made outside the prescribed procedure did not become regular merely by length of service.

Conclusion: The State Government had no power to relax the recruitment rules so as to validate or regularise the ad hoc appointments.

Issue (ii): Whether the direction requiring regularisation through the Public Service Commission was valid

Analysis: The direction for regularisation through evaluation of service records and recommendation by the Public Service Commission amounted to a third mode of recruitment not contemplated by the rules. Public employment had to conform to the constitutional mandate of equality and the statutory scheme of selection through the competent recruiting body. Reliance on earlier orders granting humanitarian relief in different factual settings did not create a general rule authorising regularisation contrary to the recruitment rules. The Public Service Commission could not be compelled to adopt a process inconsistent with the rules and constitutional requirements.

Conclusion: The direction for regularisation through the Public Service Commission was invalid.

Issue (iii): Whether the suggested chain system of year-wise vacancy notification and recruitment was legally sustainable

Analysis: Fixing recruitment according to vacancies year by year would exclude eligible candidates available on the date of advertisement and would distort open recruitment. The law required notification of vacancies and selection through the prescribed process, not a chain-based absorption of appointees according to successive years.

Conclusion: The chain system of recruitment was not sustainable in law.

Final Conclusion: The proper course was recruitment through the Public Service Commission in accordance with the rules, with the ad hoc appointees continuing only until regularly selected candidates were appointed and with age relaxation considered, if otherwise permissible, for eligible candidates.

Ratio Decidendi: Where statutory recruitment rules prescribe the mode of appointment, executive power cannot create a separate route of regularisation for ad hoc appointees, and public appointments must be made only in accordance with the rules and the constitutional mandate of equality.

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