Arbitrary and unreasonable state action cannot constitutionally be countenanced, and the government's decision to regularise the petitioners only prospectively, without providing any reasons, violated Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India.

FACTS:

The petitioners, the daily-wage earners, entered the service of the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Thiruvananthapuram, in different years-1998, 1999, and 2000-and have been working in various cadres. On 12.01.2000, the employer's Executive Committee resolved to appoint a committee to go into the issue of regularisation as all those daily-wage earners had been representing that their services be regularised. The Committee, thus constituted, recommended for the employees' regularisation.

2. The Executive Committee accepted the Committee's recommendations and recommended to the Government to regularise, initially, 20 employees. When the left-out employees renewed their demand for regularisation, the Committee has resolved to regularise 50 more employees, and later two more. Thus, 72 employees were regularised.

3. Left out, the nine petitioners submitted a series of representations, including Exts.P10 and P11, to the employer to have their services regularised. The employer, in turn, submitted Exts.P2 to P7 recommendations to the Government. Eventually, through Ext.P8, the Government accorded approval to the petitioner's regularisation, but prospectively. The employer, through Ext.P9, implemented the order of regularisation. When the petitioners again submitted Exts.P10 and P11 representations to the Government to give effect to their regularization retrospectively, the Government through Ext.P12 order rejected their request. Aggrieved, they have filed this writ petition.

SUBMISSIONS: PETITIONERS':

4. Varun C, the learned counsel for the petitioner, has submitted that both the employer and the Government have accepted that the petitioners joined the services before 01.11.2000, the cut-off joining date for regularisation. He has also submitted that both the authorities have agreed that the petitioner's names were omitted from the list of regularised candidates inadvertently-by oversight. His singular contention is that out of 72 employees regularised, the employer initially found 12 people without any qualification; therefore, their pay had not been fixed. Instead, it appointed another committee to look into the issue. Despite those employees' lacking the Committee recommended pay fixation with retrospective effect. Their pay was accordingly fixed. Ironically, the petitioners with qualification, argues Sri Varun, though omitted by oversight, were regularised only prospectively. According to him, neither the employer nor the Government has assigned any reason. Their action, in fact, is invidiously discriminatory. To support his submissions, Sri Varun has relied on Laila T.M. and others v. State of Kerala and others 2014(2) KHC 395.

RESPONDENTS':

5. Sri K. Jaju Babu, the learned Senior Counsel for the second respondent, has submitted that the Government is the sanctioning authority. Once it has decided to regularise an employee's services prospectively, the employee cannot question that decision-a policy decision. Nor can this Court interfere with that policy decision.

6. Smt. A.C. Vidhya, the learned Government Pleader, apart from adopting the submissions made by Sri Jaju Babu, has submitted that given the financial implications, the Government, having examined the issue thoroughly, has decided to regularise the petitioners only prospectively. It being a policy decision, it is not amenable to judicial review. She has relied on Thankaraj v. Kerala Water Authority 2000(1) KLT 237 and Shanmugam v. Kerala Water Authority 2004(2) KLT 529.

7. Heard the learned counsel for the petitioners, the learned Standing Counsel for the 2nd respondent and the learned Government Pleader, apart from perusing the record.

ISSUE:

The employer took a policy decision: to regularise the services of its daily-waged employees, with retrospective effect. The Government approved the employer's policy. The employer, accordingly, regularised many of its employees. But a batch of nine employees were left out. The reason-the employer omitted them by oversight.