Contractual Staff Whose Terms Allow Termination Without Reasons Cannot Claim Right to Continue: Rajasthan High Court

Respondent No. 3, the Competent Authority for land acquisition at Kotputli, advertised on 09.09.2010 for Class IV and other posts on a contractual basis, for land-acquisition work and development of National Highway No. 8 under the six-lane Gurgaon-Jaipur road scheme (para 2). The petitioners were selected, appointed by letters dated 04.01.2011 and worked on the project under the terms of those letters (para 2.1). They said that on 09.05.2011 respondent No. 3 orally restrained them from working, without a reasoned order or a hearing (paras 1, 2.2). The respondents replied that the engagement was purely contractual, that its terms reserved a right to terminate without reasons, and that the petitioners had furnished bonds or affidavits accepting that condition (para 3).

The Court found that the petitioners' only case was that their services had been terminated without following the principles of natural justice (para 4). It was not in dispute that they had been appointed on a purely temporary and contractual basis, on the condition that their services could be terminated, or their contracts brought to an end, without assigning any reason (para 5). Their engagement was governed by the terms in their appointment letters, which expressly reserved the employer's right to end the contracts without reasons (para 5). Applying the ratio of the Supreme Court in Rajasthan State Roadways Transport Corporation v. Paramjeet Singh, which the respondents had cited, and having regard to the nature of the engagement, the terms of appointment and the duties to be performed, the Court held that the petitioners could not claim any right to continue in service (paras 3, 6). It therefore found no error in the respondents' action that called for interference in the High Court's extraordinary jurisdiction (para 7).