Having set back from SC : Sukhu Govt decides to implement Taj Mohammad verdict

HP Government Moves to Implement HC Verdict; Taj Mohammad Cases to Be Decided Only by Administrative Departments

Shimla, August 20

Himachal Pradesh Government has initiated the process for implementing the landmark judgment of the Himachal Pradesh High Court in the Taj Mohammad case and its connected matters, following dismissal by the Supreme Court of the State’s Special Leave Petition against the verdict.

In a significant development affecting a large number of contractual, adhoc and other categories of government employees, the State Government has issued instructions to all Administrative Secretaries, Divisional Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Heads of Departments and heads of public sector undertakings, corporations, boards and universities to deal with matters arising from the judgment strictly at the level of the concerned Administrative Department.

The government communication, dated August 18, 2026, specifically refers to the 25 April 2026 judgment of the High Court in CWP No. 3361 of 2025, Devinder Kumar and others versus State of Himachal Pradesh and another, along with connected matters, and states that the Himachal Pradesh Recruitment and Conditions of Service of Government Employees Act, 2024 had been quashed by the High Court.

The communication further records that the State Government had challenged the High Court verdict before the Supreme Court, but the appeal was dismissed by the apex court on July 29, 2026 in SLP No. 24885 of 2026.

The High Court judgment, therefore, has acquired greater finality with the dismissal of the State’s challenge.

The government has also acknowledged the linkage of the Devinder Kumar judgment with the earlier judgment of the erstwhile Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal in the Lekh Ram case, O.A. No. 3337 of 2016, decided on May 25, 2017, and the subsequent Division Bench judgment of the High Court in the Taj Mohammad case, CWP No. 2004 of 2017, decided on August 3, 2023.

The latest instructions are particularly important because the government has now directed that judgments and orders passed in matters or civil writ petitions based on the Taj Mohammad judgment, as well as incidental matters arising from it, should be examined and decided only at the level of the concerned Administrative Department of the State Government.

The government has expressly directed that no field-level officer shall decide such cases without approval of the concerned Administrative Department.

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The development assumes significance against the backdrop of the 278-page judgment delivered by a Division Bench comprising Justice Vivek Singh Thakur and Justice Romesh Verma. The judgment dealt with a large number of connected civil writ petitions, Letters Patent Appeals and execution proceedings involving service benefits of employees who had initially served under different arrangements, including adhoc and contractual appointments.

The High Court had examined the legality of attempts to create different classes of employees through amendments to Recruitment and Promotion provisions and to deny benefits flowing from earlier judicial pronouncements. The Court held that the State, as the principal employer, cannot arbitrarily discriminate between employees performing similar duties merely because they had entered service under different modes or under different sets of Recruitment and Promotion Rules.

The Court also examined the practice of making appointments on adhoc and contractual basis without following a uniform recruitment procedure. It emphasised that appointments to government service cannot be made in disregard of the applicable R&P Rules and that eligible candidates must be given an opportunity through a transparent recruitment process.

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The judgment assumes particular importance for employees who were initially appointed on contract or adhoc basis and subsequently regularised. The Court dealt with claims concerning seniority, pensionary benefits, promotional benefits and other consequential service advantages and rejected attempts to deprive similarly situated employees of benefits by relying on artificial classifications and cut-off dates.

The High Court had also examined the State’s attempts to give statutory backing to restrictions which had the effect of neutralising earlier judicial decisions. Several provisions introduced through the 2023 amendments were challenged on the ground that they sought to retrospectively deprive employees of benefits that had already been recognised through judicial orders.

The latest government communication is therefore significant not merely as an administrative instruction but as an indication that the State machinery has begun restructuring the manner in which thousands of such service cases are to be dealt with after the High Court verdict and the dismissal of the State’s challenge by the Supreme Court.

The instruction that no field-level officer should independently decide such cases is also likely to prevent divergent interpretations by different departments and subordinate authorities. It places responsibility for examining the legal and service consequences of the Taj Mohammad line of judgments squarely on the concerned Administrative Departments.

The High Court’s ruling had stressed that the State cannot adopt different principles for employees who have rendered comparable service merely because their initial appointment was described differently. The Court also examined the State’s reliance on financial conditions and policy considerations for denying benefits, making it clear that administrative or economic considerations cannot by themselves justify unequal treatment of similarly situated employees.

The judgment further dealt with the State’s historical shift from adhoc appointments to contractual appointments and the resulting service-related anomalies. The Court’s reasoning was that changing the nomenclature or mode of appointment cannot become a device for depriving employees of legitimate service benefits where the underlying employment and duties are substantially comparable.

The August 18 government communication now provides the administrative mechanism for dealing with the consequences of the judgment. With the Supreme Court having dismissed the State’s SLP, departments will have to examine pending and decided cases arising from the Taj Mohammad judgment in accordance with the binding judicial position rather than independently adopting departmental interpretations.

The move could have a wide-ranging impact across government departments, public sector undertakings, boards, corporations and universities, particularly in cases where employees have already obtained court orders granting them pensionary, promotional or other consequential benefits.

The latest development thus marks an important stage in the long-running legal battle over the status and service benefits of contractual and adhoc employees in Himachal Pradesh, with the State Government now directing its administrative machinery to process such matters centrally at the departmental level rather than leaving their determination to field-level authorities.

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