The court ruled that employees of an NGO funded by the state performing equivalent duties to government employees are entitled to equal pay and benefits under Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

JUDGMENT :

Tarlok Singh Chauhan, J.

Since, common questions of law and facts arise for consideration in all these petitions, therefore, they were taken up together for hearing and are being disposed of by a common judgment.

2. Broadly, the prayers made in all these petitions are:

(i) to issue the direction to the respondents to immediately provide consolidated salary/pay scales to the petitioner(s) at par with their counter-parts in other Government schools of visually challenged and with impaired hearing children and extend the benefits of the respondent-State policy/schemes equally to the petitioner(s) for all intents and purposes;

(ii) to issue a direction to the respondents to immediately consider the cases of the petitioner (s) for regularization against their post with effect from the date they completed the requisite years of contractual services in terms of the Government policy with respect to regularization of contractual employees with all consequential benefits;

(iii) to issue a direction to the respondent to count the contractual services of the petitioner(s) towards their regular services with all consequential benefits.”

3. The petitioner(s) is/are/were the employees of an institute of the School/Home for speech and hearing impaired children, Dhalli, Shimla, H.P. duly run by the H.P. State Council for Child Welfare and Education ( for short “Council”). Their claim is that even though they were appointed on contractual basis and were thereafter discharging their duties and responsibilities at par with that of their counter-parts employed in the Government schools for the visually and impaired hearing children, yet they were being discriminated against qua their counter-parts at every step, be it grant of pay, regularization and pension etc. etc.

4. The respondents have filed their reply(ies) wherein it has not been disputed that the petitioner(s) has/have been performing same duties and shouldering the same responsibilities. However, the claim of the petitioner(s) has been denied only on the ground that he/they is/are/were the employee(s) of the Council which is a voluntary organization and receives grant-in-aid from the Government of India and State Government. The Council has its independent office/infrastructure in the State and for implementation of various schemes/projects, staff under various schemes have been appointed by the Council at its own level on the basis of the prevalent rules and bye-laws formulated by the Council. The Council is running institutions for disabled children at Dhalli, (Shimla) and Dari (Dharamshala). These institutions are being run under Deen Dayal Disability Rehabilitation Scheme. It is further averred that since the petitioner(s) is/are not government employees and are not holding any civil post in the Government department, therefore, they cannot claim any benefit(s), as sought for, in the petitions, from the