In Brief
The Supreme Court held that 577 ONGC employees appointed on four-year term basis between 1999–2001 without public advertisement must be regularized. Though the appointment lacked newspaper advertisement (an irregularity), it was not illegal as all other recruitment procedures were followed. The Court directed ONGC to treat these employees as regularly employed from the date the industrial dispute was referred (21 December 2004) and grant actual benefits from that date forward, replacing the High Court's partial regularization with notional benefits. The appeal was allowed.
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