aurangabad the aurangabad bench of the bombay high court on wednesday quashed and set aside a clause in the communication issued by the secretary of agriculture department on april 9 2015 facilitating the appointment of agricultural technology management agency atma through outsourcingthe bench comprising justice s s shinde and justice sangitrao patil also directed the state government and the union government to continue the atma workers hired in the scheme sponsored by the centre till they attain the age of superannuation or till the scheme exists or subject to their earlier termination either on medical or disciplinary grounds or for unsatisfactory performanceatma was sponsored by the union government to support state extension agricultural programme in 2010 the programmes were to operate at district and block levels for implementation of the scheme various 578 posts including block technology manager assistant technology manager and computer programmer were createdabout 90 expenditure on the scheme was to be incurred by the union government and the state government was to bear 10 expenses on implementation of the scheme the posts were filled by the secretary of state agriculture department by publishing an advertisement the petitioners were given appointment letters for 11 months later too the petitioners were issued such letters in continuationhowever the union government changed the ratio of funding the centre would contribute 60 of the scheme expenditure while the state government was supposed to bear 40 expenditurefollowing this the then agriculture minister directed that unless a policy decision is taken by the state government and budgetary provision is sanctioned orders for appointment of atma staff should not be issued subsequently the secretary issued a communication having a clause to make appointment on contract basis through outsourcingthe atma employees welfare association through its secretary pradeep pathak approached the high court challenging the april 9 2015 communication that indicated that instead of appointing the petitioners on contract basis for a further period the posts held by them would be filled up on contract basis only through outsourcing the work the petitioners moved the court to direct continuation of their services until continuation of the scheme sponsored by the union government or until attaining the age of superannuation lawyer s d joshi appeared for the petitioners while m a deshpande additional government pleader appeared for the state government union of india and director of atma were represented by b b kulkarni