Gauhati High Court Shields Long-Serving Government Employees from Termination
In a landmark judgment that reinforces constitutional protections for public sector workers, the Gauhati High Court has emphatically blocked the termination of several grade-4 employees who had been serving the Assam Health and Family Welfare Department for nearly 14 years. The court's ruling, delivered on January 30, 2026, establishes a crucial precedent that the state cannot retrospectively invalidate appointments due to internal administrative failures after extracting years of service from employees.
Constitutional Principle Upheld: State Cannot Profit from Its Own Errors
The division bench comprising Justices Ashutosh Kumar and Arun Dev Choudhury set aside a single judge's order that had upheld the termination, quashing the department's termination orders entirely. In their detailed judgment, the justices articulated a fundamental constitutional principle: "The state cannot take advantage of its own wrong is not a mere equitable slogan. It is a constitutional limitation on arbitrary state action."
The court emphasized that employees situated at the lowest ranks of service cannot be held responsible for administrative lapses or the employer's failure to follow its own protocols. The constitutional guarantee of equality does not require an employee to bear the consequences of administrative failure, particularly when the state has acquiesced in and benefited from the employment arrangements over a substantial period.
Fourteen Years of Uninterrupted Service Creates Irreversible Equities
The petitioners, appointed as grade-4 employees between 1999 and 2005, had their services regularized between 2009 and 2011 after years of ad-hoc service. They continued working without interruption until their abrupt termination in 2019. During this entire period spanning approximately 14 years, the state treated them as legitimate members of its workforce, assigned them essential duties in public health institutions, and paid their salaries from government funds consistently.
The court noted several critical facts that weighed against the termination:
- The recruitment process was initiated by the state itself through public advertisements
- Applications were invited, selections were conducted, and formal appointment orders were issued
- Salaries and benefits were paid continuously for over 14 years
- There were no allegations of fraud or manipulation by the employees
- The appointments were made against substantive vacancies
Distinction Between Jurisdictional Breach and Curable Irregularity
The court made an important legal distinction between breaches that go to the jurisdiction of appointment and those that represent curable irregularities. The state had argued that the appointments were invalid because they were made without prior approval from the Director of Health Services, who was the designated appointing authority, and without publication in newspapers during a period when a ban on appointments existed.
However, the bench observed that the joint directors who made the appointments were not private or extraneous authorities but legitimate functionaries heading district establishments of the health department. In the absence of any statutory provision expressly prohibiting joint directors from acting as appointing authorities, their actions could not render the entire recruitment process non-existent, especially after 14 years of continuous service recognition.
Background: Screening Process and Legal Challenges
The case originated from allegations of illegal appointments of surveillance workers in the health department raised in 2017. The Secretary to the Government of Assam directed the Director of Health Services to conduct a screening process to verify service genuineness. A committee was constituted in May 2017 to examine appointment orders, transfer orders, and service books of all grade-4 staff.
Following this exercise, show-cause notices were issued in February 2018 to employees whose appointments were deemed irregular. After legal challenges and court interventions, fresh notices were issued in June 2019, leading to the eventual termination that prompted the current litigation. The employees challenged their termination before a single judge, who upheld the department's action, leading to the appeal before the division bench.
Legal Arguments and Human Impact
Senior advocate M. Goswami, representing the petitioners, emphasized the immense financial and emotional hardship that termination would cause after 14 years of continuous service and regular salary payments. Additional Advocate General B. Gogoi, representing the state, maintained that the appointments violated mandatory procedures including approval requirements and publication norms.
The court ultimately found that allowing the state to retrospectively invalidate such appointments after extracting years of service would be antithetical to fairness and would erode public confidence in the stability of public employment. The judgment protects not only the specific petitioners but establishes broader protections for government employees against arbitrary termination based on administrative irregularities that are not attributable to them.
This ruling reinforces the principle that when the state itself proceeds to make appointments, posts employees against sanctioned vacancies, and releases their salaries year after year for an extended period, it cannot subsequently contend that the appointments were void from inception without violating constitutional guarantees against arbitrariness under Article 14 of the Constitution of India.
