FTII Keeps Seven Workers Temporary for Years and Later Routes Them Through Contractors; Bombay High Court Upholds Permanency, Says Long-Term Employment Cannot Evade Workers’ Rights
Workers Serve FTII for Years Before Being Shifted Through Contractors; Bombay High Court Upholds Permanency and Rejects Attempt to Treat Their Employment as Temporary
Facts
The dispute concerned seven workers engaged for work such as light boy and studio boy at the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII). FTII is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and receives grant-in-aid from the Central Government. According to FTII, the workers were hired only on an “as and when required” basis from around 2005–06 and were paid daily wages whenever students required assistance for project work. No appointment letters were issued. AMIT KALIDAS
The workers, however, claimed that they had been continuously working with FTII since 2003. According to them, FTII initially paid them directly, but from around 2007 began routing their wages through contractors. Their demand for permanency ultimately resulted in Reference (IT) No. 45/2015 before the Industrial Tribunal, Pune. AMIT KALIDAS
By Award dated 2 April 2024, the Industrial Tribunal held that FTII’s action in not regularising the seven workers and placing them on a contractual arrangement was illegal and unjustified. It directed FTII to grant them the benefits of permanency from January 2023. AMIT KALIDAS
Both sides challenged the Award. FTII filed Writ Petition No. 1644 of 2025 against the grant of permanency, while the workers filed Writ Petition No. 14169 of 2025 seeking permanency from January 2003. AMIT KALIDAS
Issues
The principal questions before the Bombay High Court were:
- Whether the Industrial Tribunal could direct regularisation/permanency of the seven workers in a public institution such as FTII.
- Whether their long service and the actual nature of their work justified permanency despite their initial daily-wage/need-based status.
- Whether routing the workers through contractors altered the substantive employer-employee relationship.
- Whether the subsequent availability of sanctioned posts of Studio Assistants supported the Tribunal’s order.
- Whether Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3) prohibited the relief.
- Whether the workers were entitled to permanency from 2003 instead of January 2023.
FTII’s Arguments
FTII argued that the workers were never its regular employees. Their services were need-based and subsequently supplied through contractors. Studio Assistants were required only when students undertook project work, and there was no permanent requirement when the workers were initially engaged. AMIT KALIDAS
FTII also contended that the workers had never specifically pleaded or proved that the contractual arrangement was sham and bogus.
Its principal legal argument was based on the Constitution Bench judgment in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3). FTII submitted that no sanctioned permanent posts existed when the workers were engaged and that FTII itself lacked authority to create posts, that power being vested in the Government of India. AMIT KALIDAS
FTII further contended that the 15 Studio Assistant posts created in 2023 arose because postgraduate courses had subsequently been introduced and could not retrospectively legitimise the workers’ claim for regularisation. AMIT KALIDAS
Workers’ Arguments
The workers contended that their engagement was continuous and that until 2007 they were paid directly by FTII.
According to them, FTII subsequently shifted them through contractors without issuing the notice of change required under Section 9 of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. They continued working through contractors for more than 11 years until their services were terminated in 2018 while the industrial reference was pending. AMIT KALIDAS
They further alleged that FTII failed to produce relevant employment records despite an order requiring production, justifying an adverse inference. They relied upon their long continuous service and the subsequent advertisement of 15 Studio Assistant posts to demonstrate the permanent nature of the requirement. AMIT KALIDAS
In their own petition, the workers sought permanency from 2003, contending that the Central Standing Orders entitled them to permanency upon completion of the prescribed period. AMIT KALIDAS
Analysis of the Law
Umadevi: Long Service Alone Is Not Enough
Justice Sandeep V. Marne began with the Constitution Bench decision in Umadevi.
The general rule remains that a temporary, casual or contractual employee cannot demand regularisation merely because the engagement has continued for a long period. Public employment must ordinarily conform to Articles 14 and 16 and the applicable recruitment procedure. AMIT KALIDAS
However, Umadevi itself recognised an exception for irregular, as opposed to illegal, appointments of qualified persons against duly sanctioned vacant posts who had continued for ten years or more without protection of court orders. AMIT KALIDAS
Sanctioned Posts Remain Important
The Court examined MSRTC v. Casteribe Rajya Parivahan Karmchari Sanghatana, where the Supreme Court recognised the wide remedial powers of industrial adjudicators in cases involving unfair labour practices, while maintaining that permanency ordinarily requires the existence of posts. Courts cannot simply direct creation of posts where none exist. AMIT KALIDAS
Likewise, Hari Nandan Prasad v. Food Corporation of India held that regularisation may be directed in appropriate circumstances where posts exist, whereas granting permanency in the absence of available posts may amount to impermissible back-door entry. AMIT KALIDAS
The Bombay High Court’s Division Bench ruling in Municipal Council, Tirora v. Tulsidas Baliram Bindhade similarly held that mere completion of 240 days does not automatically confer permanency in public employment where sanctioned vacancies do not exist. AMIT KALIDAS
Recent Supreme Court Shift: Substance Over Labels
A significant feature of the judgment is its consideration of recent Supreme Court authorities applying Umadevi to long-serving workers.
In Jaggo v. Union of India, the Supreme Court cautioned against mechanically using Umadevi to reject legitimate claims of employees who have rendered continuous and indispensable service for many years.
The emphasis is on looking beyond the label attached to the engagement and examining the actual reality of employment—continuity, duration, nature of duties and whether the work represents a genuine recurring institutional requirement. AMIT KALIDAS
The Supreme Court in Jaggo specifically criticised the misuse of temporary arrangements and outsourcing as mechanisms for avoiding long-term obligations to employees, particularly by government institutions. AMIT KALIDAS
It further observed that outsourcing may sometimes be used as a shield by institutions to replace one set of temporary workers with another while continuing essentially the same work. AMIT KALIDAS
Vinod Kumar: Actual Course of Employment Matters
The High Court also considered Vinod Kumar v. Union of India, where the Supreme Court held that employment rights cannot always be determined exclusively by the terms on which the employee was initially engaged.
Where the actual employment relationship has substantially evolved over time and the worker performs duties comparable to permanent employees over a prolonged period, the substantive nature of that relationship becomes relevant. AMIT KALIDAS
Thus, an employer cannot necessarily rely indefinitely upon the original “temporary” nomenclature if the factual employment arrangement subsequently acquires the characteristics of regular service.
Shripal and Contract Labour
The Court also considered Shripal v. Nagar Nigam Ghaziabad, involving workers who were described as casual employees or workers supplied through contractors.
The Supreme Court examined who actually supervised the workers, who paid them and whether there was genuine documentary material establishing the contractor arrangement. This reinforced the principle that courts must examine the real employment relationship rather than merely the contractual label adopted by the employer. AMIT KALIDAS
Why the 15 Studio Assistant Posts Were Important
The Industrial Tribunal had selected January 2023 as the point from which permanency should operate because FTII issued an advertisement in that month for filling 15 Studio Assistant posts. AMIT KALIDAS
This was significant because one of FTII’s principal objections was that there were no sanctioned posts against which the workers could be regularised.
The existence of those posts therefore supplied an important factual basis for distinguishing a case in which a court effectively creates posts from one in which permanent sanctioned posts have actually become available.
Court’s Reasoning
The Court examined the controversy by balancing two principles.
First, public employment cannot ordinarily be regularised merely because a person has worked for several years. Umadevi continues to prohibit regularisation that would bypass the constitutional recruitment process.
Second, Umadevi cannot be applied mechanically without examining the substance and history of the employment relationship, particularly in light of subsequent Supreme Court decisions dealing with workers who have rendered long, continuous service while being repeatedly characterised as temporary or contractual.
The case therefore required consideration not merely of the nomenclature attached to the seven workers but of their actual deployment at FTII, the duration and continuity of their work, their subsequent routing through contractors, and the eventual creation of permanent Studio Assistant posts.
The Court found no sufficient basis to interfere with the Industrial Tribunal’s grant of permanency from January 2023.
At the same time, the workers could not establish an entitlement to permanency all the way back to January 2003 merely on the basis of their asserted commencement of service or the Standing Orders.
Conclusion
The Bombay High Court ultimately upheld the Industrial Tribunal’s substantive direction granting permanency to the seven workers from January 2023.
FTII’s challenge to the grant of permanency therefore failed.
The workers’ cross-petition seeking to push the benefit backwards to January 2003 also failed.
The practical effect was that the Tribunal’s choice of January 2023—the period when FTII advertised sanctioned Studio Assistant posts—remained operative.
The judgment is important because it does not discard Umadevi. Instead, it reads the constitutional restriction on back-door regularisation together with more recent Supreme Court jurisprudence requiring courts to scrutinise the actual substance of long-term employment rather than mechanically accepting labels such as temporary, casual or contractual.
Case Details
Case: Film & Television Institute of India v. Javed Rasul Banedar & Ors., with Amit Kalidas Jagtap & Ors. v. Film & Television Institute of India & Anr.
Court: Bombay High Court, Civil Appellate Jurisdiction
Case Nos.: Writ Petition No. 1644 of 2025 with Writ Petition No. 14169 of 2025 AMIT KALIDAS
Neutral Citation: 2026:BHC-AS:39581
Judge: Justice Sandeep V. Marne
Reserved: 17 September 2026
Pronounced: 29 September 2026 AMIT KALIDAS
Impugned Award: Industrial Tribunal, Pune, Reference (IT) No. 45/2015, dated 2 April 2024. AMIT KALIDAS
Result: Industrial Tribunal’s grant of permanency to the seven workers from January 2023 upheld; FTII’s challenge and the workers’ claim for permanency from 2003 did not succeed.
