New Delhi: Teachers appointed to Kendriya Vidyalays on an ad hoc basis to meet exigencies in an academic year cannot be regularised in service as a matter of right, the Supreme Court has held.

"The words `regular' or `regularisation' do not connote permanence and cannot be construed as conveying an idea of the nature of tenure of appointments," said a Bench consisting of Justices S.B. Sinha and C.K. Thakker.

"Only something that is irregular for want of compliance with one of the elements in the process of selection which does not go to the root of the process can be regularised. And granting permanence of employment is a totally different concept and cannot be equated with regularisation."

Writing the judgment, Justice Sinha quoted an earlier decision and said: "If the appointment itself is an infraction of the rules or if it is in violation of the provisions of the Constitution, it cannot be regularised. Ratification or regularisation is possible of an act which is within the power and province of the authority but there has been some non-compliance with the procedure or manner which does not go to the root of the appointment."

The Bench said, "Regularisation cannot be said to be a mode of recruitment. To accede to such a proposition would be to introduce a new head of appointment in defiance of rules or it may have the effect of setting at naught the rules."

In the instant case, the appellant Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) said teachers to 854 schools were appointed on an all-India basis as per rules.

Leave vacancies were filled as a stopgap arrangement for a particular period in an academic year. Respondents L.V. Subramanyeswara and others were appointed in Hyderabad on this basis.

The Central Administrative Tribunal, Hyderabad, rejected their plea for regularisation.

However, on appeal the Andhra Pradesh High Court directed the appellant to regularise their services.

Allowing the appeals against this judgment, the Bench agreed with the submissions by S. Rajappa, counsel for the KVS, that the respondents did not satisfy the tests of equality, reservation or the rule of law as per the principles laid down by the apex court.

Further, they did not complete 10 years (as envisaged in a Constitution Bench judgment) without court intervention.

Setting aside the impugned judgment, the Bench said the respondents would not have been in service for more than 10 years but for the intervention by the High Court.

They had continued in service only on its interim orders.

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