The main legal point established is that the employment relationship between the petitioners and the State was not severed, and the petitioners, appointed prior to 1.9.2005, are covered by the G.P.F. scheme.

1. Heard learned counsel for the petitioners and learned counsel for the State in this batch of writ applications. The issues involved are common. Counter affidavits have been filed in some of the writ applications and which are sufficient to enable this Court to appropriately consider the stand of the State in the matters.

2. Learned counsel for the parties have no objection to the disposal of this batch of writ applications by the present common order.

3. The facts are being culled out from the pleadings of the parties in C.W.J.C. No. 6183/08 and which are sufficient for delimiting issues of law to be considered. The only differentiating factor is the separate dates of the original daily wage appointment of the petitioners.

4. The petitioner was appointed as a daily rated worker on 1.6.1981 as a Pump Khalasi under the Pubiic Health Engineering Department. On 14.3.1988 he was absorbed in the regular work-charge establishment. His service-book and G.P.F. accounts were also opened with effect from 13.1.1988. Deductions from his salary for deposit in his G.P.F. account also commenced. On 17.6.1996 by a decision of the Divisional Establishment Committee he was brought into the regular establishment as a Pump Operator on a vacant post. The petitioner in this manner continued to work. A show cause notice was then issued to him on 13.4.2002 as to why he should not be reverted back to his status of a daily rated worker because his absorption in the work-charge establishment was itself contrary to the resolution of the Finance Department dated 23.10.1987 Thereafter followed an order dated 22.8.2002 reverting him to the status of a daily wage employee.

5. The petitioner questioned his reversion in C.W.J.C. No. 7359/02 (heard with analogous cases) when this Court on 13.7.2006 noticing the controversy referred the matter for consideration by a committee of the State Government. Thereafter the petitioner was again regularized/absorbed in the regular establishment on the post of Pump Operator by an order dated 6.12.2006. In pursuance of the same, deductions commenced from his salary towards his G.P.F. contribution from December, 2006 till January, 2008. On 1.2.2008 followed an order that the petitioners being fresh appointees after 1.9.2005 shall come within the purview of the Contributory Provident Fund Scheme and they have been required to open their accounts for that purpose leading to stoppage of their salary.

6. On 31.8.2005, the State Government issued an order in pursuance of a decision of the Central Government. Ciause-3 of this order of the State Government is relevant for the purposes of present controversy fixing a cut-off date of 1.9.2005.

7. Learned counsel for the petitioners have urged that the petitioners are not fresh appointees after 1.9.2005. Tracing back their appointment as daily wagers followed by work-charge establishment and induction into the regular establishment since long years, it is submitted that the relationship between the State and the petitioners never came to be severed. The State has not found any error in their daily wage appointments. What has happened by the decision dated 6.12.2006 is only a re-affirmation of the original status of the petitioners. Even if it be conceded that the petitioners were considered afresh, their re-induction was nothing but a reappointment in terms of paragraph-3 of the circular dated 31.8.2005.

8. Learned counsel for the State urged that the initial induction of the petitioners into the work-charge establishment in 1988 was contrary to the law. Notices to show cause were issued after consideration of the same and that the petitioners were covered by the policy decision being appointees before 1.8.1985 they were taken into the work-charge establishment on humanitarian grounds. Otherwise, the petitioners were fit to be ousted. Referring to an order dated 22.8.2002, it is submitted that an option was given to the persons like the petitioners that in the facts and cir