Bengaluru: The high court directed the regularisation of two daily wage employees who worked for 39 and 32 years, respectively, under the rural development and panchayat raj department. The court held that the state govt practised a “pick and choose” procedure while considering their regularisation.
Anandu joined panchayat raj engineering division at Ankola, Uttara Kannada district, as a literate assistant on Aug 12, 1986. Ishwar joined the same office as a junior engineer on Sept 6, 1993. They claimed both were appointed on a daily wage basis against sanctioned posts. They further claimed that, in view of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Umadevi (third judgement) case, they sought regularisation of their appointments, which was not considered.
On the other hand, the state govt argued that merely because the petitioners were working as daily wagers for a longer period, their services could not be regularised. However, Justice M Nagaprasanna pointed out that the petitioners fulfilled all four conditions enumerated in the top court’s order dated April 10, 2006.
“The first condition is that they should be appointed against a sanctioned vacant post; they are. The second is that they should fulfil the qualifications for the posts; they do. The third condition is that they should have completed 10 years of service as of the date of judgment, which was April 10, 2006. In fact, the first petitioner completed close to 20 years of service by then, and the second petitioner, 13 years. Therefore, they fulfil that condition as well. The fourth condition is that their continuance should not be litigious, which would mean that they should not be continued on the strength of any interim order. The petitioners fulfil every condition,” the judge further added.
“The employees who have served for long years with a minimum threshold of 10 years and beyond, and if they come within the parameters of what the Supreme Court noted, the state itself should consider regularisation of those cases, albeit on a case-to-case basis, as a person who is working on a daily wage would not be in a position to bear the brunt of litigation,” the judge further observed.
“The petitioners shall become entitled to the fixation of their salaries on such regularisation as obtaining to a permanent employee from the dates they complete 10 years of service and would not be entitled to arrears of salary. However, the period shall be treated for all consequential benefits that would flow from such regularisation. The services rendered by the petitioners throughout shall be counted for the purpose of determination of pension and all other incidental terminal benefits,” Justice Nagaprasanna further said, while allowing their petition.