Service Law – Regularisation of daily wage or contract workers – Appellants were irregularly appointed by the State of Jharkhand – Plea of Appellants that they had put in more than 10 years of service and therefore were entitled to be regularised – Plea rejected by the High Court – Further, High Court took the view that the decision of the Supreme Court in Umadevi (3) case did not permit regularisation of appellants since they had not worked for
10 years on the cut-off date of 10.04.2006 when the Constitution Bench rendered its decision – Held: High Court erred in taking an impractical view of the directions in case of Umadevi (3) – The purpose and intent of the decision in Umadevi(3) was to prevent irregular or illegal appointments in the future and further to confer a benefit on those who had been irregularly appointed in the past – A strict and literal interpretation of Umadevi(3), without considering the spirit of the decision would make regularisation of the irregular employees very difficult since the State of Jharkhand came into existence only on 15.11.2000 and cut-off date was fixed as 10.04.2006 – Thus, the Regularisation Rules must be given a pragmatic interpretation and appellants, if they had completed 10 years of service on the date of promulgation of the Regularisation Rules, ought to be given the benefit of the service rendered by them – Jharkhand Sarkar ke Adhinasth Aniyamit Rup se Niyukt Ewam Karyat Karmiyo ki Sewa Niyamitikaran Niyamawali, 2015. Disposing of the appeals, the Court
HELD: 1. The decision in Secretary, State of Karnataka and Ors. v. Umadevi (3) and Ors. was intended to put a full stop to the somewhat pernicious practice of irregularly or illegally appointing daily wage workers and continuing with them indefinitely. The purpose and intent of the decision in Umadevi(3) was therefore two-fold, namely, to prevent irregular or illegal appointments in the future and secondly, to confer a benefit on those who had been irregularly appointed in the past. The fact that the State of Jharkhand continued with the irregular appointments for almost a decade after the decision in Umadevi(3) is a clear indication that it believes that it was all right to continue with irregular appointments, and whenever required, terminate the services of the irregularly appointed employees on the ground that they were irregularly appointed. This is nothing but a form of exploitation of the employees by not giving them the benefits of regularisation and by placing the sword of Damocles over their head. This is precisely what Umadevi (3) and Kesari sought to avoid. [Paras 6, 8] [415-D; 417-B-D]
2. If a strict and literal interpretation, forgetting the spirit of the decision of the Constitution Bench in Umadevi (3), is to be taken into consideration then no irregularly appointed employee of the State of Jharkhand could ever be regularised since that State came into existence only on 15th November, 2000 and the cut-off date was fixed as 10th April, 2006. In other words, in this manner the pernicious practice of indefinitely continuing irregularly appointed employees would be perpetuated contrary to the intent of the Constitution Bench. [Para 9] [417-E-F]
3. Under the circumstances, the Jharkhand Regularisation Rules of 2015 must be given a pragmatic interpretation and the appellants, if they have completed 10 years of service on the date of promulgation of the Regularisation Rules, ought to be given the benefit of the service rendered by them. If they have completed 10 years of service they should be regularised unless there is some valid objection to their regularisation like misconduct etc. [Para 11] [417-G-H; 418-A-B]
Secretary, State of Karnataka and Ors. v. Umadevi(3) and Ors. (2006) 4 SCC 1 : [2006] 3 SCR 953 ;
Umadevi(3) in State of Karnataka and Ors. v. M.L. Kesari and Ors. (2010) 9 SCC 247 : [2010] 9 SCR
543 – referred to.
As published in the Supreme Court Reports, Supreme Court of India. Text from the Indian Supreme Court Judgments open data set (Dattam Labs), CC BY 4.0.
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