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2022 Supreme(HP) 99
IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA
MOHAMMAD RAFIQ, JYOTSNA REWAL DUA, JJ.
Sudha Devi S/o Shri Ramesh Lal – Petitioner
Versus
State of Himachal Pradesh – Respondent
Civil Writ Petition No. 1050 of 2017
Decided On : 23-03-2022
Advocate Appeared:
For the Petitioners: Ranjana Parmar, Karan Singh Parmar.
For the Respondents: Ashok Sharma, Adarsh Sharma.
Point of Law : Court held that part time employees are not entitled to seek regularization as they were not working against any sanctioned posts. Such employees cannot claim parity in salary with regular employees on the principle of equal pay for equal work.
Headnote:
Constitution of India, 1950 - Article 39(d), 226 - Equal wages for equal work - Petitioner claims that despite having been appointed as a part time employee, she continued to discharge duties of a whole time worker for many years - She accordingly filed a petition praying for regularization of her services either as Class-III or Class-IV employee and equivalent wages for duties discharged by her for period on the analogy of equal pay for equal work. Learned erstwhile Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal did not find favour in her claim - Her petition was dismissed - Hence, she has moved instant petition under Article 226 of Constitution of India.
Findings of the Court :
Fact of extracting additional work from petitioner was brought to notice of respondent No. 2 by her immediate higher officers with request to pay her wages for work performed by her - On account of shortage of peons, District Statistical Officer, Shimla also requested for deployment of one peon in office - Though correspondence is there on record where District Statistical Officer was chided by respondent No. 2 for sending such kind of office letters in favour of petitioner but fact remains that much more office work had been extracted from petitioner in addition to work for which she was employed during year when she was actually made a whole time/daily wager - Having said this, Court may also observe that there is no clarity with regard to exact nature of work actually performed by petitioner in addition to her normal duties and duration thereof during this period. only thing certain is that she performed much more work than her normal duty hours from year - Therefore, to balance scales and in the interest of equity, justice and good conscious, Court deem it appropriate to grant a lump sum payment of Rs. 2,00,000/- (Rupees two lacs) in favour of the petitioner for additional work she performed during the period in question - Court direct respondents to pay this amount to petitioner within a period of two months from today, failing which, it shall carry interest @ 7% per annum - Impugned orders passed by learned Tribunal passed by respondents are set aside to this extent
Result: Writ petition is disposed of
Result: Writ petition is disposed of
ORDER :
1. Petitioner claims that despite having been appointed as a part time employee, she continued to discharge the duties of a whole time worker for many years. She accordingly filed a petition praying for regularization of her services either as Class-III or Class-IV employee and equivalent wages for the duties discharged by her for the period on the analogy of equal pay for equal work. Learned erstwhile Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal (‘Tribunal’ for short) did not find favour in her claim. Her petition was dismissed. Hence, she has moved instant petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
During hearing of the case, learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner submitted that petitioner’s services have been regularized by the respondents during pendency of the instant petition and that the petitioner is satisfied with her regularization order. Learned Senior Counsel confined her submissions only for grant of wages to the petitioner commensurate to the work taken from her. We have accordingly heard the matter only regarding this issue.
2. Facts:
(i) Petitioner was appointed as part time Class-IV worker/Sweeper in the office of respondent No. 2 on 20.5.2002. On completion of ten years of part time service, she was appointed as a daily waged Class-IV employee on 6.6.2012. As noted earlier, her services now stand regularized.
(ii) Some facts leading to filing of instant petition may be noticed. Petitioner filed civil writ petition bearing CWP No. 6713 of 2014 in this Court impugning therein the order dated 6.6.2012, whereby she was conferred daily waged status of Class-IV worker. She claimed that she was entitled for regularization as Class-IV/Class-III employee. The writ petition was disposed off on 19.9.2014 with a direction to the competent authority to decide petitioner’s representation within a time bound schedule. The competent authority rejected petitioner’s representation on 12.12.2014. Petitioner filed another writ petition challenging the order dated 12.12.2014. She also claimed therein relief of her regularization as Class-III/Class-IV employee alongwith consequential benefits. This writ petition was transferred to the learned Tribunal. The petition was dismissed as T.A. No. 1417/2015 by the learned Tribunal vide order dated 7.12.2015. Taking note of the fact that Smt. Sudha Devi (regular peon) had availed only 214 days’ earned leave from 2007 to 2014, learned Tribunal held that the petitioner could not prove her claim of having worked whole time ever since the year 2007. Review Petition No. 13/2015 filed by the petitioner was also dismissed by the Tribunal on 17.4.2017. These orders passed by the Tribunal dismissing her main petition as well as review petition have also been assailed in the instant petition. Petitioner has also questioned the order dated 12.12.2014 passed by the competent authority rejecting her representation.
3. Contentions:
(i) Learned Senior Counsel for the petitioner submitted that the petitioner has been performing the job of a whole time worker w.e.f. the year 2007. Petitioner continued to discharge such duties till 06.06.2012 when she was actually appointed as a daily wager on completion of ten years of part time service. Petitioner, therefore, is entitled to the wages of whole time employee w.e.f. the year 2007 to 06.06.2012.
We have been taken through various documents in support of this factual plea. The documents relied by learned Senior Counsel in support of this plea are as under:
(a) Office letter dated 07.04.2007 written by the District Statistical Officer, Shimla to respondent No. 2 stating that two Class-IV employees were there in the office, out of which, one employee, namely, Rajpal Chauhan had been deployed in the Secretariat for past about a year and the other employee, namely, Smt. Sudha (not the petitioner) was on medical leave w.e.f. 12.03.2007 on account of disc problem. The letter acknowledges that for the above reason there was no Class-IV employee in the of
