Ad hoc and daily wage service excluded from cadre benefits; statutory recruitment rules prevail over executive instructions.

Service rendered on ad hoc, daily wage, urgent temporary or work-charged basis was not treated as service in the cadre for claiming selection grade, stagnation benefits, promotion-linked benefits or seniority. The governing rules distinguished regular appointment to the service from temporary engagement outside the recruitment process, and only regular cadre service counted as qualifying service for such benefits. Executive instructions could not override statutory recruitment rules, and earlier dismissal of special leave petitions did not create binding precedent or negative equality. The cited precedents were consistent that non-regular service is excluded when reckoning length of service for these benefits.

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Issues: Whether service rendered on ad hoc, daily wage, urgent temporary or work-charged basis could be counted as service in the cadre/service for claiming selection grade, stagnation benefits, promotion-linked benefits and seniority, and whether executive instructions could override the recruitment rules.

Analysis: The governing rules and notifications drew a clear distinction between appointment to a post and appointment to the cadre/service in accordance with the recruitment rules. Ad hoc appointment was only a temporary appointment made otherwise than under the regular recruitment process and did not amount to substantive appointment in the service. The benefit of selection scale or stagnation relief was tied to regular service in the cadre, and the period spent on ad hoc or other non-regular engagement could not be treated as qualifying service. The Court also held that executive instructions could not prevail over statutory recruitment rules, and that dismissal of some earlier special leave petitions did not create binding law or negative equality. The precedents relied upon confirmed that ad hoc service is excluded while reckoning length of service for such benefits.

Conclusion: The period of ad hoc, daily wage, urgent temporary or work-charged service could not be counted for these benefits, and the appeals succeeded on the main controversy.

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