Introduction:
The Tripura High Court has held that the mere description of an appointment as “contractual” cannot, in the circumstances of a prolonged and continuous engagement, be used to disregard the substance of an employee’s service. The Court has directed Tripura University to reinstate and regularise the services of a woman employee who had worked continuously for nearly 15 years, observing that her sustained contribution to the University and the nature of duties performed by her warranted equitable treatment.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit delivered the judgment on September 17, 2026, in WA No. 60 of 2024, Smti. Jayanti Bhattacharjee v. The Tripura University & Ors.
The case concerned the service career of the appellant, who was initially appointed as a contractual Lecturer in the BBA Programme of Tripura University in February 2009. Her appointment followed an advertisement issued in 2008 and a selection process involving an interview. Although the appointment was formally described as contractual, she continued to discharge her functions through successive extensions for several years.
Her position changed in February 2016 when the University re-designated her as an Assistant Placement Officer. The appellant repeatedly challenged the re-designation, maintaining that there was no legitimate basis for removing her from the teaching position in which she had originally been appointed and that she possessed the requisite qualifications.
Despite the dispute concerning her designation, the appellant continued working with the University. The situation took a more serious turn in January 2022 when her salary was stopped. She was subsequently treated as a daily-wage worker and paid ₹1,200 per working day.
The appellant approached the High Court seeking restoration of her service status and regularisation. Her challenge, however, was rejected by the Single Judge, leading her to prefer the present writ appeal before the Division Bench.
The Division Bench examined the nature of her original appointment, the selection process through which she entered service, the length and continuity of her engagement, the duties she performed, the University’s decision to alter her designation, and the subsequent reduction in her remuneration.
A central issue before the Court was whether an employee who had been continuously engaged for almost 15 years could be denied regularisation merely because her initial appointment was described as contractual. The question acquired particular significance because the University sought to rely upon the Supreme Court’s judgment in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi (2006) 4 SCC 1, which laid down important limitations on regularisation of persons appointed irregularly or without following the prescribed recruitment procedure.
The Tripura High Court ultimately distinguished the application of Uma Devi to the facts before it. The Bench found that the appellant’s entry into service was not comparable to a case of a person entering public employment through an entirely backdoor process. She had responded to an advertisement, participated in a selection process and was thereafter continuously engaged in the University’s work for years.
The Court further found that the work performed by the appellant was essential to the functioning of the University and was not materially different from the work performed by regular employees. Her long tenure, according to the Court, could not simply be ignored by repeatedly describing her appointment as contractual.
The judgment also addressed the University’s 2022 decision to reduce her status and remuneration. The Court found that the order reducing her remuneration to ₹1,200 per working day had been passed without giving her notice or an opportunity of hearing. It therefore held the action to be arbitrary and illegal and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.
The constitutional dimension of the judgment is important. Article 14 does not merely prohibit discriminatory treatment in the abstract. It also operates against arbitrary State action. Where a public university changes an employee’s service status and remuneration in a manner that has serious civil consequences, the decision must conform to basic standards of fairness and non-arbitrariness.
The Bench ultimately directed the University to reinstate and regularise the appellant as an Assistant Placement Officer, extend the applicable regular pay scale and reckon her service from February 4, 2009 for the purpose of pension and other retirement benefits.
The decision therefore places emphasis on the substance of the employment relationship rather than permitting the contractual description attached at the beginning of service to determine the employee’s rights indefinitely.
Arguments of the Parties:
The appellant’s case before the Division Bench was founded principally upon the nature and duration of her service. She contended that her appointment as a contractual Lecturer could not be viewed in isolation from the manner in which the University had treated her over the subsequent years.
According to the appellant, she had entered the University’s service pursuant to a formal recruitment exercise. Her appointment followed an advertisement and an interview, and therefore could not be characterised as an appointment made clandestinely or through a completely informal process. She continued in service through repeated extensions and performed functions that were essential to the University.
The appellant relied upon the long duration of her engagement as an important circumstance. She had joined the University in February 2009 and remained continuously associated with it for nearly 15 years. During this period, the University had repeatedly utilised her services rather than treating her engagement as a short-term arrangement that would naturally come to an end.
The appellant also challenged the University’s decision in 2016 to re-designate her as an Assistant Placement Officer. She maintained that she possessed the qualifications required for her original role and that the University had not established a valid reason for altering her designation.
Her grievance was compounded by the subsequent action taken in 2022. The appellant contended that stopping her salary from January 2022 and subsequently treating her as a daily-wage employee constituted a substantial and adverse alteration of her service conditions.
The reduction to a payment of ₹1,200 per working day was particularly challenged on the ground that she had already rendered several years of continuous service with the University. The appellant argued that the University could not unilaterally alter her status and remuneration after such prolonged service without following principles of fairness and natural justice.
The absence of notice or an opportunity to respond was also significant to the appellant’s case. The 2022 decision had direct financial and service consequences for her, yet she was not given a prior hearing before her remuneration and employment status were altered.
The appellant therefore sought restoration of her position, regularisation of her services and consequential service benefits. Her claim was not merely based upon the length of service, but on the cumulative circumstances surrounding her appointment, selection, continuous employment, nature of duties and the University’s subsequent conduct.
The University, on the other hand, relied upon the contractual character of the appellant’s original appointment. Its position, as reflected in the Court’s consideration of the matter, was that the appellant could not automatically claim regularisation merely because she had remained in service for a prolonged period.
The University also relied upon the principles laid down by the Supreme Court in Uma Devi. That judgment has generally been understood as placing limits on the judicial regularisation of persons appointed to public posts without following the constitutionally required recruitment process.
The University’s reliance on Uma Devi was significant because public employment is governed by the constitutional requirements of equality of opportunity under Article 16. A direction to regularise an employee who entered service without a proper selection process can potentially disadvantage other eligible candidates who were not given an opportunity to compete for the post.
The University therefore sought to resist the appellant’s claim on the basis that contractual employment did not, by itself, create a right to regular appointment. The contractual nature of the engagement and the applicable rules governing university appointments were relevant to determining whether the Court could direct regularisation.
The dispute before the Division Bench consequently required the Court to balance two important principles. On one side was the constitutional requirement that public employment should ordinarily be accessed through a fair and competitive process. On the other was the need to prevent a public authority from exploiting the contractual label indefinitely while continuously taking the benefit of an employee’s services.
The Court was therefore required to examine the actual circumstances of the appellant’s entry into service rather than simply accepting the nomenclature used in her appointment order.
The appellant’s case also placed emphasis on the difference between a genuinely temporary engagement and an arrangement that continues for many years while the employee performs functions that are integral to the institution. Her argument was that the University’s conduct over the years demonstrated that her work was not merely incidental or intermittent.
The University, conversely, maintained that long service could not by itself override the statutory or regulatory framework governing appointments. The Uma Devi principle was relied upon to contend that regularisation cannot ordinarily become a substitute for recruitment through the prescribed procedure.
These competing considerations formed the backdrop against which the Division Bench examined the appellant’s service history.
Court’s Judgment:
The Division Bench approached the matter by examining the substance of the appellant’s engagement and the circumstances in which she had entered University service.
One of the important findings was that the appellant’s appointment had substantive characteristics notwithstanding the contractual description attached to it. The Court took note of the fact that she had been selected after an advertisement and interview and had thereafter continuously discharged duties for the University.
This was significant because the case was not viewed as one in which an individual had simply entered public employment through an unauthorised or clandestine arrangement and subsequently sought regularisation solely on the basis of the passage of time.
The Court found that the appellant had been performing duties that were essential to the University’s functioning. Her work, particularly in the roles she subsequently occupied, was not treated as a peripheral or occasional service. The University had continued to utilise her services over a period approaching 15 years.
The Division Bench therefore declined to allow the contractual label attached to the original appointment to become determinative of the appellant’s entire service career.
The Court’s reasoning reflects an important principle in service jurisprudence: the legal character of an employment relationship cannot always be determined solely by the nomenclature used by the employer. The surrounding circumstances, the manner of appointment, the nature of work, the continuity of service and the conduct of the employer can all become relevant.
The Court also examined the appellant’s re-designation in 2016. It found that the University had wrongly changed her designation to Assistant Placement Officer. The appellant possessed the requisite qualifications and, according to the Court, the University had failed to establish a valid justification for the change.
This finding was important because the re-designation could not be viewed as an isolated administrative decision. It affected the appellant’s professional position and the nature of the work she was required to perform after several years of service.
The Court accordingly directed that she be reinstated and regularised as an Assistant Placement Officer, the position in which she had ultimately been serving.
The most significant constitutional finding concerned the University’s action in 2022. The appellant’s remuneration was reduced to ₹1,200 per working day and her status was altered to that of a daily-wage worker.
The Division Bench found that this decision had been taken without giving the appellant notice or an opportunity of hearing. Because the order had serious consequences for her financial and service position, the absence of procedural fairness rendered the decision vulnerable.
The Court consequently set aside the 2022 order and held the action to be arbitrary, illegal and violative of Article 14.
Article 14’s protection against arbitrariness is particularly relevant where the State or an instrumentality of the State exercises administrative power affecting an individual’s civil rights. A public authority cannot ordinarily alter a person’s service conditions in a manner carrying serious adverse consequences without complying with the requirements of fairness.
The University’s status as a public university also meant that its administrative decisions were subject to constitutional standards. The Court’s reasoning therefore placed the appellant’s grievance within the broader constitutional requirement that State action must be fair, non-arbitrary and legally sustainable.
The Bench then considered the University’s reliance on Uma Devi.
The Supreme Court in Uma Devi had cautioned constitutional courts against issuing routine directions for regularisation merely because temporary or contractual employees had served for extended periods. The underlying concern was that public employment must comply with constitutional requirements and that courts should not effectively create a method of recruitment outside the prescribed framework.
However, the Tripura High Court found that the facts of the present case required a different approach. The appellant had not merely secured employment through an undisclosed or wholly irregular arrangement and then sought to convert it into permanent service after a short period. She had been selected through an advertised process involving an interview and had subsequently served the University continuously for almost 15 years.
The Court also attached significance to the nature of the duties she performed. Her services were continuously required and were indistinguishable, in substance, from the work performed by regular employees.
Thus, according to the Division Bench, the University’s continued reliance on her services over such a prolonged period created circumstances materially different from the ordinary situation addressed by Uma Devi.
The Court’s approach also reflects the principle that the State cannot necessarily derive the benefit of an employee’s services for years and then rely exclusively upon the contractual description of the initial appointment to deny all meaningful recognition of that service.
The Court described the appellant’s sustained contribution over nearly 15 years as warranting equitable treatment and regularisation. It characterised the denial of the benefit, in the circumstances of the case, as manifest injustice requiring correction.
The emphasis on equity, however, did not mean that the Court treated length of service as an automatic entitlement to regularisation. The judgment, as reflected in the supplied case summary, rests on a combination of factors: the appellant’s selection through an interview process, the continuity and duration of her service, the essential nature of the work, the absence of a convincing justification for her re-designation and the University’s subsequent conduct in reducing her status and remuneration.
The distinction is important because the judgment does not simply establish that every contractual employee who completes a particular number of years must automatically be regularised. Rather, the Court assessed the totality of the circumstances surrounding this particular employment relationship.
The decision also has implications for the principle of legitimate and fair treatment in public employment. An employee who has served an institution continuously for many years may reasonably expect that any fundamental change to her status or remuneration will be supported by lawful authority and preceded by a fair procedure.
The Court’s intervention in relation to the 2022 order demonstrates this aspect particularly clearly. Even if the University believed that the appellant’s contractual status required reconsideration, the institution could not simply reduce her remuneration and change her status without notice and an opportunity to respond.
The requirement of hearing becomes especially important where an administrative decision has adverse civil consequences. The Court therefore treated the absence of notice and hearing as a serious defect rather than a mere procedural irregularity.
Having found in favour of the appellant, the Division Bench issued consequential directions concerning her service benefits. The University was directed to reinstate and regularise her as Assistant Placement Officer, provide her the applicable regular pay scale and count her service from February 4, 2009 for pension and other retirement benefits.
The direction to reckon service from the original date of appointment is particularly significant. It recognises the continuity of the appellant’s service rather than treating her regularisation as creating an entirely new employment relationship from the date of the Court’s order.
The pensionary and retirement consequences also reflect the Court’s conclusion that the appellant’s prolonged service could not fairly be divided into artificial periods based solely on the contractual terminology used by the University.
At the same time, the judgment must be understood within the factual framework recorded by the Court. The decision turned on the particular combination of a formal selection process, nearly 15 years of continuous service, performance of essential duties, the absence of a satisfactory basis for the re-designation and the arbitrary reduction of remuneration without hearing.
The case therefore illustrates the tension that can arise in public employment between the constitutional requirement of recruitment through fair procedure and the equally important requirement that public authorities themselves act fairly towards persons whose services they have continuously utilised.
The Court’s ruling ultimately placed substance over form. The contractual label attached to the appellant’s initial appointment did not, in the Court’s assessment, justify disregarding the reality of her long and continuous service.
The judgment also reinforces the proposition that constitutional courts can examine whether administrative action affecting service conditions is arbitrary even where the employer invokes contractual terms. A public university, like other public authorities, remains bound by constitutional standards when taking decisions affecting an employee’s livelihood and service status.
By directing regularisation and consequential benefits, the Division Bench sought to correct what it considered an inequitable situation created through years of continued contractual engagement followed by an abrupt reductio in status and remuneration.
The decision in Smti. Jayanti Bhattacha