Outsourced Workers Have No Right To Promotion; Designation Upgrade Without Authority Can Be Corrected: Uttarakhand High Court

The Uttarakhand High Court has held that “outsourced or contract employees do not automatically acquire the status enjoyed by regular State Employees”.

Thus, holding the above, the High Court iterated that “continuance of an outsourced employee in service for long periods of time does not Ipso facto establish a direct employee-employer relationship with a State Government”.

The Court made the observation while refusing to interfere with a communication issued by Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan restoring the designation of outsourced employees to the original designation mentioned by UPNL while sponsoring them for engagement on contract.

Observing that the petitioners were sponsored by UPNL for engagement as Stenographers and were never sponsored for engagement as Senior Personal Assistants, the Court held that the competent authority was justified in restoring the original status enjoyed by the petitioners.  

Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari was dealing with a writ petition filed by two outsourced employees engaged through UPNL.  

Pursuant to a request made by Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan, the petitioners were sponsored by UPNL for engagement on contract as Stenographers.

The petitioners contended that their status was upgraded to Senior Personal Assistant by the then Chief General Manager pursuant to an order dated 20.02.2021. However, by a communication dated 08.04.2026, the outsourcing agency (UPNL) was informed that the competent authority had decided to restore the designation of persons engaged on contract through outsourcing as was mentioned by UPNL while sponsoring them for engagement on contract.

In effect, the communication restored the designation of the petitioners to Stenographers from their promoted designation of Senior Personal Assistants. Accordingly, the said communication was challenged in the writ petition.  

The petitioners contended that since their status was upgraded to Senior Personal Assistant by order dated 20.02.2021, they were entitled to continue as Senior Personal Assistant, and their status could not be reduced to that of Stenographer.

Reliance was also placed on Clause 3(6) of the Government Order dated 03.02.2026 to contend that the petitioners would be entitled to the benefits admissible for the post against which they were presently serving.  

Conversely, the Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan submitted that the petitioners were outsourced employees engaged through UPNL and could not claim to have acquired any status based on their engagement on contract. Importantly, it was submitted that there was no direct master-servant relationship between the petitioners and Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan and, therefore, there could not be any question of promoting the petitioners to higher positions.

It was further argued that the then Chief General Manager had given a new designation to the petitioners without any authority of law and that the petitioners could not capitalise off of a wrong committed by him. Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan also submitted that the issue of regularisation of outsourced employees engaged through UPNL was under consideration and that the writ petition had been filed to lay foundation for claiming regularisation on the post of Senior Personal Assistant and not Stenographer. According to the Jal Sansthan, the post of Senior Personal Assistant can be filled only by promotion, and regularisation is permissible only against a post which is required to be filled by direct recruitment.  Thus, they contended that the petitioners were attempting to achieve a benefit to which they were otherwise not entitled.

Referring to Clause 3(6), the Court observed that “ the latter half of Clause 3(6), however, provides that if the nature of work/duties of an outsourced employee has been changed, then he shall be entitled to benefits for a work/post against which he/she was initially engaged. Thus viewed, the impugned communication does not affect the benefits, which may accrue to the petitioners in future, based on decision taken by the State Government regarding persons engaged on contract through UPNL”.

The Court further iterated that “outsourced or contract employees do not automatically acquire the status enjoyed by regular State Employees. Continuance of an outsourced employee in service for long period does not ipso facto establish a direct employer-employee relationship with the State Government. Engagement through outsourcing agency does not necessarily indicate existence of sanctioned post and they can be engaged even if there is no sanctioned post available.

The High Court also clarified that since the petitioners were sponsored by UPNL for the position of stenographers and not Senior Personal Assistant, the unilateral change to their designations done by the Chief General Manager is justified to be corrected by the competent authority without entailing any civil consequences to the petitioners.

Importantly, the Court also observed that “as outsourced employee, petitioners do not have any direct employee-employer relationship with Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan, therefore it was not open to Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan to upgrade the status of petitioners, who were having status of outsourced employee.

Law is well settled that outsourced employees do not have any right to claim promotion and the alternation in the designation made by the Chief General Manager of Uttarakhand Jal Sansthan was, therefore, without any authority of law. The competent authority was, therefore, justified in restoring the original status enjoyed by petitioners to them”.

Thus, holding the above, the Court found no reason to interfere with the impugned communication.

Accordingly, the writ petition was dismissed.

Case No.: WPSS 1383/2026

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