CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 1 of 9 Item No.39 Regular List IN THE HIGH COURT OF JAMMU & KASHMIR AND LADAKH AT SRINAGAR CCP(S) No.488/2022 JAVAID AHMAD KHAN …PETITIONER(S) Through: - Mr. S. N. Ratanpuri, Advocate. Vs. SMT. SHABNAM KAMILI & ORS. …RESPONDENT(S) Through: - Mr. Mohammad Younis vice Mr. A. R. Malik, Sr. AAG. CORAM: HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE SANJAY DHAR, JUDGE ORDER(0RAL) 31.05.2025 1) Pursuant to order dated 09.12.2024 passed by this Court, the respondents have placed on record report of the second committee along with the list of DRWs. They have also filed a fresh compliance report. 2) Heard and considered. 3) Before coming to the present contempt petition, it would be necessary to trace out the facts leading to the filing of the present contempt petition 4) The petitioner and other similarly situated persons filed a batch of writ petitions before this Court seeking regularization of their services. The said batch of writ petitions came to be decided by this Court in terms of order CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 2 of 9 dated 03.12.2012, whereby this Court, inter alia, extended a direction that the writ petitioners who have been cleared by the 2nd Committee vide report dated 8th May, 2010, are not required to be re-verified and, therefore, their cases shall be processed and finalized in accordance with applicable rules. 5) The petitioner(s) herein feeling aggrieved of the inaction of the respondents in implementing the judgment of the Writ Court, filed a contempt petition before this Court. The contempt petition came to be disposed of by this Court in terms of order dated 23.05.2019. The operative of portion of the said order is reproduced as under: “21. However, for what has been stated above, opinion cannot be framed that there has been any wilful disobedience on the part of respondents of the order dated 3rd of December, 2012 passed in bunch of petitions with lead case being SWP No.983/2009 titled "Nazir Ahmad Magray & ors. Vs. State of J&K & ors" or any other order passed thereafter during the currence of contempt proceedings. So contempt proceedings cannot be continued or rule framed against any of the respondents and as a sequel to which it is found proper to drop the proceedings. Accordingly, contempt proceedings are dropped with above observations. Nonetheless, in view of the observations made above and in particular at Para 20, the petitioners would be, however, at liberty to have resort to available remedial measures to challenge order dated 16.09.2013 or any other order, which, according to them, is in breach of any of the rights of theirs claimed vis-à-vis respondent department or passed in disregard to Court direction. 6) It seems that the petitioner(s) filed a review petition seeking review of aforesaid order. The said review petition CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 3 of 9 was disposed of in terms of order dated 26.02.2021. The operative portion of the said order reads as under: “Perusal of the records and the order of which the review is sought reveals that the Court while taking view regarding entitlement of petitioners s. king regularization qua the direction passed by the writ Court has concluded the same by making observation and directions for taking decision but without granting any liberty to the petitioners to approach the Court again in the event the decision is not taken or in case the decision taken, affects the rights of the petitioners. The contention raised in the review petition supported by the contention of Mr. S. N. Ratanpuri, learned appearing counsel for the petitioners, has merit, therefore, the review petition is allowed to the extent of granting liberty to the petitioners to approach this Court again in the event the order is not implemented or the order, if any, passed having adverse effect, to challenge the same. 7) After passing of order in the review petition, the petitioners filed the instant contempt petition alleging therein that despite lapse of considerable period of time, nothing concrete has been done by the respondents, as such, the petitioner is left with no option but to approach this Court again through the medium of present contempt petition. 8) A series of statements of facts/compliance reports have been filed by the respondents during the pendency of the present contempt petition. It has been submitted by the respondents that pursuant to order dated 03.12.2012 passed by the Writ Court, a detailed consideration order was passed on 16.09.2013 whereby claim of the petitioners CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 4 of 9 was rejected. It has been further submitted that a detailed compliance report was submitted by the respondents in the earlier contempt petition filed by the petitioners and the report of the 2nd Committee along with the list of DRWs was also placed before the Court, whereafter the Court, while passing order dated 23.05.2019, considered the said report along with the list of DRWs and came to the conclusion that no contempt is made out against the respondents. It has also been contended that pursuant to order dated 23.05.2019 passed in the earlier contempt petition, the petitioners herein were given opportunity to submit their documents before the Committee constituted by the Government and the Committer passed a detailed order whereby cases of the petitioners were rejected in terms of consideration order dated 29.10.2021. A copy of the said order has also been placed on record. 9) The crux of the argument of learned counsel for the petitioners is that it was not open to the petitioners to undertake re-verification of engagement orders of the petitioners, as in terms of the judgment of the Writ Court, those writ petitioners who have been cleared by the 2nd Committee vide its report dated 8th May, 2010, were not required to be re-verified. It has been contended that all the petitioners figure in the list of DRWs annexed to the report CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 5 of 9 dated 8th May, 2010. It has been contended that in both the consideration orders dated 16.09.2013 and 29.10.2021, the respondents have sought to re-verify the engagement orders of the petitioners. Thus, according to the petitioners, both these consideration orders cannot be termed to be in tune with the spirit of the judgment of the Writ Court. 10) In the above context, it is to be noted that aforesaid contention of the petitioners was considered by this Court while disposing of previous contempt petition filed by the petitioners and a detailed order was passed by this Court on 23.05.2019. While taking note of the aforesaid argument of the petitioners, this Court had observed as under:. Having regard to the order passed in bunch of petitions with lead case being SWP No.983/2009 titled "Nazir Ahmad Magray & ors. Vs. State of J&K & ors", it is evident that the observations were made in terms of the said order regarding nature of the controversy and what was required to be done. It was emphasized on the respondents to take a decision in the light of the applicable rules including entitlement to regularization. There was no requirement of having re-verification of those of the writ petitioners who were covered by the 2nd Committee report, is also the observation as noted supra. There is, however, no conclusive finding in the order passed on the said date or in any other order passed by this Court in either of the cases about the genuineness of the engagement of any of the petitioners. Since a joint claim had been preferred by the petitioners, case of the petitioners for being entitled to regularization, was left to the decision of the respondents, who could thus examine the merit of each individual case and take a decision permissible in facts. There is also an observation made in the said order (dated 3rd CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 6 of 9 December, 2012), that in view of contents of communication dated 12.06.2012, the respondents could not be debarred from conducting verification so as to establish genuineness of all other cases of the daily wagers who are claiming to be the bona fide daily wagers. 11) From the above observations of this Court, it is clear that the respondents were not debarred from conducting verification so as to establish genuineness of all other cases of the daily wagers who are claiming to be the bonafide daily wagers. It was also observed that since a joint claim has been preferred by the petitioner(s), their cases for being entitled to regularization was left to the decision of the respondents, who could thus examine the merit of each individual case and take a decision permissible in facts. The Court also took note of the 2nd Committee report dated 8th May, 2010, and concluded that the same does not lead to anywhere or specify with certainty as to who among the petitioners had a genuine order, right to continuation, regularization or deployment. The Court after noticing these facts went on to observe as under: 16. The scope for initiation of proceedings is to be thus examined in the above backdrop. It being quite manifest that there are some contentious issues involved in the matter which are required to be determined by production of detailed evidence. Consequently, examination of each case is to be made on appreciation of peculiar characteristics of the case, which each of the petitioners would have. It is thus not found proper, in these proceedings, to stretch its scope for CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 7 of 9 examining the contentious issues or returning finding thereon and thereafter to frame the conclusion about disobedience of the Court direction passed on 3rd of December, 2012. It is also a fact that the order of consideration dated 16.09.2013 has not been challenged by any of the 17. Precisely, however, it can be opined that direction or writ has not been granted on 3rd December, 2012 for regularization of services of any one of the petitioners or all the petitioner. The respondents had been made aware of their domain to verify the antecedents of the petitioners which they even otherwise could do. Mere continuation on the interim direction passed by the Court does not thus wed any of the petitioners with right to regularization. Each of the petitioners could and had to project his personal claim before the respondents in the light of statutory requirements and to satisfy the respondents accordingly. The decision thereafter could be easily taken by the respondents. The Court too would be in a position to return finding on merit of each individual case only if relevant pleadings are available, about each individual case and same are substantiated by the evidence of sterling quality. 12) After noticing the advice of the Law Department tendered to the respondents/contemnors to the effect that the department should explore the possibility of addressing claim of the petitioners in terms of SRO 520 of 2017, the Court observed as under: 20. In above view of the matter, the respondents shall have to conclude themselves the action proposed to be taken as referred in terms of status reports dated 18.04.2018 and 20.02.2019, if in their estimation the regularization otherwise sought in terms of cartier policy is not found workable or permissible due to any deficiency vis-à-vis any petitioner or petitioners. Consideration and decision thereupon shall be taken in each individual case and the petitioners shall, if CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 8 of 9 asked, render necessary assistance to the respondents to proceed ahead and the follow up and the decision takers AST thereon be, accordingly, intimated to the petitioners. Let the same be done within a period of eight weeks, as far as practicable. 13) So far as order dated 26.02.2021, passed in the review petition filed against order dated 23.05.2019, is concerned, it only granted liberty to the petitioners to approach the Court in the event the order is not implemented or the order, if any passed having adverse effect, to challenge the same but the observation made by the Court in order dated 23.05.2019, whereby it was left open to the respondents to undertake verification of engagement orders of the petitioners, has not been reviewed by this Court while disposing of review petition No.35/2019. Thus, the petitioner cannot claim that the respondents, by undertaking the exercise of re-verification of engagements order, have violated either the order of the Writ Court or any direction passed in the contempt proceedings. 14) In fact, the respondents, after the directions were passed in the review petition, have re-examined the whole issue by constituting a Committee of officers in terms of Government Order dated 13.02.2020. The Committee held threadbare discussion and thereafter published notices in the newspapers giving opportunity of hearing to all the petitioners, whereafter it proceeded to pass the CCP(S) No.488/2022 Page No. 9 of 9 consideration order dated 29.10.2021. It was observed by the Committee that the Xerox copies of engagement orders which were submitted in some cases are irrelevant and in no way substantiate the claim of the petitioners in terms of SRO 64 of 1994 and, as such, the petitioners do not fulfil any of the conditions as envisaged under SRO 64 of 1994. 15) In the face of aforesaid facts, it can by no stretch of reasoning, be stated that the respondents have violated the order of the Writ Court or any other order passed subsequent thereto. The petitioners through the medium of present petition are trying to re-agitate the issues which have been elaborately discussed and deliberated upon by this Court in its order dated 23.05.2019. The instant contempt proceedings are, therefore, without any merit. 16) Accordingly, the contempt proceedings are closed and the contempt petition shall stand disposed of, leaving it open to the petitioner to lay a challenge to consideration orders dated 16.09.2013 and 29.10.2021, by of appropriate proceedings. (Sanjay Dhar) Judge Srinagar, 31.05.2025 “Bhat Altaf” Whether the order is reportable: YES/NO Mohammad Altaf Bhat I attest to the accuracy and authenticity of this document 04.06.2025 02:19