The Delhi High Court today asked the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) whether it had any policy on regularisation of employees who are on contract.
The court was hearing an appeal by JNU's 26 contractual employees, who are ex-servicemen and were working as mess managers, advisors and maintenance managers, seeking regularisation of services and an appropriate pay scale.
They have been working with the university since 1980s for a salary of Rs 2500 per month and 24 of them have now retired.
A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sunil Gaur said it was a fit case for considering regularisation of services.
The court said the facts indicated there was a need for a policy on regularisation of such employees and asked JNU's lawyer Monika Arora about the varsity's stand on the issue. She sought time to respond.
The court, thereafter, listed the matter for November 30 for further hearing.
A single judge bench of the high court had in December 2015 dismissed the petition in which the petitioners had sought a fixed salary in an appropriate scale.
The petition, which was filed in 1999 before the single judge, has sought regularised services of the petitioners by framing an appropriate scheme on it and a direction to pay the arrears in terms of difference in salary after pay fixation.
The appeal, filed through advocate R K Saini and Varun Nagrath, sought setting aside of the single judge's order on the ground that it was causing a miscarriage of justice and an irreparable loss to the petitioners employees.
The petitioners have claimed that their tenure in the university was extended on yearly basis and they were well experienced and qualified and have retired at an age group of 35 to 48 years after completion of their limited service periods in the respective armed forces.
They submitted that they were eligible to be appointed on a civil post for which the minimum educational qualifications required is graduation as per the Central government's notification in a 1986 gazette.
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