Long-term employees performing essential and continuous functions may claim regularization after a decade of service, despite previous procedural irregularities.

ORDER :

M.NAGAPRASANNA, J.

1. The petitioner is before this Court seeking a direction to the respondents to consider his case for regularisation of service from the date on which he completed ten years with all consequential benefits.

2. Heard Sri Ranganatha S. Jois and Sri S.Y. Rodagi, learned counsel for the petitioner, Smt. Girija S. Hiremath, learned counsel for respondent Nos.1 and 2 and Sri Aravind D. Kulkarni, learned counsel for respondent Nos. 3 to 6.

3. The facts in brief germane are as follows:

The petitioner joins the service of respondent No.6 as a heavy mazdoor (Group-D) on daily wages with effect from 19.01.1977. He is said to have worked continuously until 02.04.1989, when he was orally terminated without assigning any reasons and without any enquiry.

4. The petitioner challenged this termination before the Labour Court by way of reference in I.D. No.21/1991. The Labour Court by its award dated 26.07.1996 allowed the reference. It directed the petitioner’s reinstatement with continuity of service and back wages. Since the order of the Labour Court was not complied by the respondents, the petitioner filed Writ Petition No.4889/1998 before this Court, which came to be allowed on 17.03.1998 and directed the respondent to implement the award passed by the Labour Court against which, respondent No.6 filed Writ Petition No.15966/1998 which came to be rejected and later the petitioner was reinstated. Since his reinstatement, the petitioner has continued in service. He has made repeated representations seeking regularisation, but the respondents have instead given a partial relief. They included him under the Daily Wage and Welfare Act, 2012, rather than regularising him. The petitioner insists that he must be regularised, not merely covered by welfare legislation.

5. The learned counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that the petitioner is entitled to be regularised from the date on which he completed 10 years of service. It is submitted that the Labour Court had awarded continuity of service, the said award has attained finality, and the respondents have implemented the order.

6. The learned counsel further places reliance on two instances where similarly situated employees have been regularised, while the petitioner has been subjected to discriminatory treatment. He, therefore, seeks parity with others who have been regularised in service.

7. The learned HCGP, however, vehemently refutes the submissions of the petitioner and further submits that the petitioner has been brought under the Daily Wage Welfare Act, which is beneficial to him, and therefore regularisation cannot be claimed as a matter of right in view of the judgment of the Apex Court in STATE OF KARNATAKA Vs. UMADEVI reported in (2006) 4 SCC 1 .

8. Learned counsel appearing for respondent Nos.3 to 6 adopts the submissions of the learned HCGP in seeking dismissal of the petition.

9. I have given my anxious consideration to the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties and perused the records.

10. The above-narrated facts are not in dispute. The petitioner’s appointment as a daily-wage employee in the year 1977 till 1984 and he being terminated, subsequently, was again reinstated in the month of June 1988 and worked till 02.04.1989, on which date he was terminated, is a matter of record. The petitioner raised a dispute before the Labour Court which was allowed. The award passed by the Labour Court is as follows:

“The reference is accepted.

The termination order dated 2.4.1989 passed by the Second Party is set aside.

The Second Party is directed to reinstate the