In Brief
Nurses and health workers appointed on an "academic arrangement" basis in Jammu & Kashmir sought regularization of services under a 2010 state law that regularized ad hoc and contractual employees but explicitly excluded "academic arrangement" appointees. The Supreme Court set aside the High Court's dismissal of their claims. The Court held that nomenclature alone cannot deny constitutional rights. Since academic arrangement appointees performed identical duties under comparable conditions to contractual employees, excluding them from regularization was arbitrary and violated Article 14 (right to equality). Section 3(b) of the 2010 Act was declared unconstitutional. The State must consider all similarly situated employees for regularization within four weeks.
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