The central legal point established in the judgment is the entitlement to regularisation of employees working in non-statutory departmental canteens, considering their informal employment and the relevant O.M.s and communications.

JUDGMENT :

Vipin Sanghi, J.

Cav No. 616/2019

Learned counsel for the respondent caveator has appeared. The caveat stands discharged accordingly.

C.M. No. 27368/2019

Exemption allowed, subject to all just exceptions. The application stands disposed of.

C.M. No. 27367/2019

This application has been moved to seek condonation of delay in filing the petition. Considering the fact that the impugned order was passed by the Tribunal on 23.07.2018 and there is no limitation prescribed for preferring a writ petition, we allow this application. Delay, if any, is condoned.

W.P.(C) 6446/2019 & C.M. No. 27366/2019

1. The petitioner assails the order dated 23.07.2018 passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal, Principal Bench, New Delhi, (the Tribunal) in O.A. No. 283/2014. The Tribunal has allowed the said Original Application and directed the petitioner herein to consider the cases of the respondents - applicants in terms of paragraph 44 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Secretary, State of Karnataka and Others v. Uma Devi and Others, (2006) AIR SC 1806. The Tribunal has held that the respondents would be entitled to all consequential benefits but the payment of arrears would be with effect from date of filing of the Original Application i.e. 24.01.2014.

2. The respondents had preferred the Original Application claiming that two of them joined as cook and tea maker in the departmental canteen run by the Regional Passport Office (RPO), New Delhi in the year 1994. Applicant No.3 joined as a waiter in the same canteen in the year 1997. The said departmental canteen was exclusively meant for the employees and officers of the RPO at New Delhi. The applicants sought regularisation by placing reliance on the decision of the Supreme Court in Uma Devi (supra). In the first round, the Original Application was dismissed by the Tribunal vide order dated 29.05.2015. The said dismissal came about in view of the finding returned by the Tribunal at that stage, that there was no recognised canteen in the RPO prior to 2008, nor it was having any sanctioned post, or recruitment rules, against which the respondent applicants could claim to be appointed on casual/ daily wage basis. The Tribunal, in the said order, had observed:

8. As pointed out in earlier paras, the applicants in the present OA have not been able to establish that they were duly qualified persons appointed to duly sanctioned posts and as such cannot claim the benefit of the law laid down in Uma Devi (supra). Counsel for respondents also relied on judgment of Sombir Singh Vs. Union of India & Ors., (WP(C) No. 1463/2014 dated 29.04.2014. We find that the petitioners therein were employees of unit run canteen of the Army Headquarters. As the pattern of working of the canteen in the Army and civil offices are quite different, we do not find that judgment to be relevant in the present case.

3. The respondents then approached this Court by preferring W.P. (C.) No. 7510/2015. The said writ petition was disposed of on 07.08.2015 with liberty to the petitioners therein to produce relevant documents at the time of the hearing of the Original Application. The petitioners therein were permitted to seek review of the order dated 29.05.2015. The respondent - applicants then filed additional documents, and after considering the same, the Original Application has been allowed by the impugned order.

4. The submission of Mr. Ravi Prakash, learned counsel for the petitioner is that there was no department- run canteen at the RPO during the period when the respondents claimed to have been appointed as cooks/ waiters. He submits that merely because the respondents, who are 3 in number, got together and started to run their own canteen, would not give them the right to seek regularisation in terms of Uma Devi (supra). He submits that there was no sanction for setting up of the departmental canteen; no sanctioned p