Chandigarh, April 18 -- The Supreme Court (SC) on Thursday upheld the regularisation of group B, C and D (class II, III and IV) contractual and daily-wage employees who had completed at least three years of service and were employed as on May 28, 2014, under the June 16 and 18, 2014 policies of the Haryana government. The apex court however struck down two notifications of July 7, 2014, which sought to regularise ad-hoc group B, C and D employees who were in service since December 31, 2008, terming them arbitrary and illegal. The SC said that it did not see any justifiable reason to uphold the validity of the two notifications of July 7, 2014, since they intend to regularise the services of such ad-hoc employees, who were engaged without any advertisement and without being interviewed. "However, in the peculiar facts of the case, group B, C and D ad-hoc employees, who have secured benefit of these notifications and who continue in service shall not be disturbed. They will be placed in the lowest pay scale of the post held by them,'' the bench of Justice Pamidighantam Sri Narasimha and Justice Atul S Chandurkar said in the April 16 order. The SC was hearing a bunch of appeals challenging the May 31, 2018 judgement of Punjab and Haryana high court which had quashed the regularisation policies of the state government (June 16, 2014, June 18, 2014 and July 7, 2014) holding them to be violative of the law laid down by the court. The SC said having found June 16 and 18, 2014 notifications valid and that the high court was not justified in holding otherwise, the services of the beneficiaries under these two notifications would stand protected. The top court held that the object behind issuing the June 16 and 18, 2014 notifications was primarily to grant the benefit of regularisation to those remaining group B, C and D ad-hoc, contractual/daily wage employees, which had been granted to similarly placed employees pursuant to March 7, 1996 notification. These intended to cover such employees who have been deprived of the benefit of the March 7, 1996 regularisation policy. "The criteria prescribed was not in any manner watered down or deviated from the criteria required to be satisfied while seeking regular appointment. What is most relevant, in our view, is that such engagement should have been initially made on a sanctioned post and such engagement on the sanctioned post ought to be continuing even on the date of regularisation of service,'' the SC said. The apex court further said that the subsequent notifications of July 7, 2014 are found to be arbitrary and illegal. "Under the said notifications, ad-hoc group B, C and D ad-hoc employees who were in service since December 31, 2008, were intended to be regularised. A period of almost 12 years has elapsed since the issuance of the July 2014 notifications. It is the specific stand of the state government that even after excluding the ad-hoc employees from group B, C and D, who seek benefit of the two July 2014 notifications, none of the posts advertised would be affected. Further, it is informed that such appointees have now gained sufficient experience and are likely to have settled in life with the passage of time. It is true that when the challenge was pending before the high court, by an interim order of September 2, 2016, it was directed that orders of regularisation, if passed, would be subject to the final outcome of the said proceedings," the SC said. "When the present proceedings were pending in this court, an interim order directing status quo to be maintained was passed in SLP(C) 31566 of 2018 on Nov 26, 2018. It is, thus, clear that these ad-hoc employees continued in service and their services are still being utilised by the state of Haryana. In these peculiar facts and in exercise of jurisdiction under Article 142 of the Constitution, we deem it appropriate to permit such group B, C and D ad-hoc employees, who are continuing in service and who seek benefit of July 7, 2014 notifications, to be continued in service. They shall, however, be placed at the lowest pay scale that is admissible to the post held by them in terms of the decision of this court in State of Punjab vs Jagjit Singh,'' the SC added....