The status of being permanent and regular employees cannot be reverted to a daily wager after their demise, and once employees are treated as permanent employees, they cannot be denied benefits based on subsequent rebranding as daily wagers.

ORDER :

1. Rule returnable forthwith. Mr. Kurven Desai, learned Assistant Government Pleader waives service of notice of Rule for the respondent – State in all these petitions.

2. With the consent of the learned advocates for the respective parties, these three petitions are taken up for final hearing today.

3. In all these petitions, under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the case of the petitioners is that their claim have been rejected by various communications on record for lump-sum compensation under the Government Resolutions dated 5.7.2011, 7.4.2016 and 13.10.2015 on the ground that the dependents cannot be granted such compensation on the ground that they were Daily Wagers and, therefore, they are not governed by the Scheme of the Government Resolution dated 5.7.2011.

4. Ms. Ashlesha M. Patel, learned counsel for the petitioners would rely on CAV Judgment of this Court dated 14.2.2022 passed in Special Civil Application Nos.11554 and 12746 of 2021 in the case of Fatmabai Abdul Sumra v. State of Gujarat. Relevant extract of the CAV Judgment reads as under:

“6 Having considered the submissions made by the learned counsels for the respective parties, it will be apt to consider the first decision in line rendered by this Court (Coram : Hon’ble Ms.Justice Abhilasha Kumari,J.) in Special Civil Application No. 1795 of 2013. Therein too, the claim of the petitioner for financial benefits in lieu of compensation were denied. After extensively hearing the parties, the Court opined that it was strange for the respondents to contend that the services of the petitioner were regularized and were coverted into “permanent daily wager”. There is no concept of permanent daily wager. Extensively relying on the decision in the case of State of Gujarat and ors vs. Mahendarakumar Bhagwandas, which was reproduced in para 9 of the decision, the Court in no uncertain terms held that there was no concept of permanent daily wager. The relevant paras 8 to 11 of the decision reads as under:

“8. A strange ground is taken in Paragraph7 of the affidavit-in-reply filed by respondent No.2, wherein it is stated that the “service of the petitioner was regularised and his service was converted as permanent dailywager”. There is no concept of a “permanent dailywager” in service jurisprudence.

What the term “permanent dailywager” means can only be explained by the second respondent. Mr.Niraj Ashar, learned Assistant Government Pleader, has remained unsuccessful in satisfying this query of the Court. In the order dated 28.03.2008, whereby the services of the petitioner's father were made permanent, respondent No.2 has used the word “permanent” and not “permanent dailywager”. The term “permanent dailywager”, therefore, appears to have been coined by respondent No.2, presumably with a view to taking the case of the petitioner out of the scope and ambit of the Government Resolution dated 05.07.2011.

9. The nomenclature of “permanent dailywage employee” came up for discussion before the Division Bench of this Court in the case of State of Gujarat & Anr V. Mahendrakumar

Bhagvandas & Anr., reported in 2011(2) GLR 1290. This is what the Division Bench held:

“5. ...Once the employees concerned were, in fact, treated for all purposes as permanent employees in terms of G.R. dated 17.10.1988, any discrimination or denial of benefits for a segment of such employees, who were subsequently rebranded as “daily wager” (rojamdar) by G.R. dated 18.7.1994, could not be rationally explained and could not be countenanced in the face of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Nor can the State Government legally take away the rights conferred and benefits, already accorded to the

employees concerned by or under a subsequent government resolution, which expressly supersedes earlier instructions and not earlier G.R. dated 17.10.1988 by which the benefits were accorded to the employees. It also sounds absurd and baseless that employee employed on daily wage basis for 15 years would b