HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE RAMESH RANGANATHAN WRIT PETITION No. 6774 of 2001 ORDER: The relief sought for in this Writ Petition is to declare the action of the respondent-bank, in not considering the claim of the petitioners for absorption in accordance with the scheme formulated by the bank, as illegal and arbitrary and, consequently, to direct the respondent-bank to consider their claim for absorption. The petitioners, three in number, claim to have been engaged for short periods of time as sub-staff from 01.01.1982 to 31.12.1990. While the first petitioner claims to have worked for a period beyond 107 days, no details are furnished with regards others. Pursuant to an agreement entered into with the All India Central Bank Employees Federation the respondent-bank formulated a scheme for absorption of sub-staff, whereby temporary employees, who had put in 240 days of service in a continuous period of 12 months between 01.01.1982 to 31.12.1990 or those who worked during the period from 01.01.1987 to 24.12.1990 and were registered with the Employment Exchange but were not sponsored, were required to appear in the recruitment test for absorption; the said scheme also required the bank to call for employees who had worked for 60 days in a year, during the period from 01.01.1987 to 24.12.1990, for the recruitment test; none of the petitioners had worked for 240 days in a continuous period of 12 months; while the first petitioner had worked for 107 days during a period of 4½ years, the second petitioner had worked for 189 days during the said period and the third petitioner had worked only for 89 days in the year 1985, that too, on casual wage basis; except the first petitioner, none of the others were eligible to be called for the recruitment test; the first petitioner was called upon to appear for the recruitment test; and, in view of the ban imposed by the Central Government against such recruitment, the selection process undertaken could not culminate in any appointments being made. Sri C.V.Rajeeva Reddy, Learned Standing Counsel for the respondent-bank, would place reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Official Liquidator v. Dayanand[1], in support of his submission that it is only if an employee puts in long service, for continuous periods ranging beyond 10 years, would he be entitled to seek regularization of his services; and, since none of the petitioners herein had put in even 240 days of service in a continuous period of 12 calendar months, the question of their being entitled as a matter of right, for absorption, did not arise. The protection, which a workman is entitled to, under Section 25-F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (for short ‘the Act’), on his putting in 240 days of continuous service in a period of 12 months prior to his termination, is only to the limited extent that he would be required to be reinstated into service in the very same post which he held earlier. A temporarily employee, whose case falls under clauses (1) and (2) of Section 25-F of the Act, can, at best, seek reinstatement into the very same post of a temporary employee, and cannot claim regularization of his services. In the case on hand, the respondent-bank has not appointed any one, pursuant to the recruitment test, in view of the ban imposed on such recruitment by the Central Government. In the additional affidavit filed by the respondent-bank it is stated that the said ban continues to be in force as on date. The petitioners are, therefore, not entitled to the relief sought for in this Writ Petition. The Writ Petition fails and is, accordingly, dismissed. However, in the circumstances, without costs. RAMESH RANGANATHAN,J Date:02.12.2010 usd [1] 2008(10) SCC 1