ORDER :

The petitioners are aggrieved by the inaction of the respondents in regularizing their services and seek a consequential direction to the respondents to regularize their services in the post in which they are presently working or any other equal post together with scales of pay along with consequential benefits.

2. The petitioners claim is that they have been working as safai workers continuously working from the year 1985. The petitioners claim that they upkeep the general maintenance of sever lines of the entire township of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. The work of the petitioners includes clearing the clogged manholes, clogged sever line, cleaning up of septic tanks and over all maintenance of the residential colony of staff of the respondent. The petitioners submit that they were engaged in the year 1985 and that from the year 1986 the work of the petitioners was entrusted to third party contractors on contract basis. The petitioners have been continuously working through the contractors since then. As seen from //3//

the pleadings of the writ petition, contractors have been changing year on year, however the petitioners claim that they have been continuously working and discharging their role as sanitation workers on the rolls of the contractors.

3. Sri.P.Ravi Shankar, learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the work of the petitioners is perennial in nature and that the work of the petitioners is neither seasonal nor casual. The learned counsel for the petitioners submits that the petitioners ensure that the sever lines of the entire Township of the respondent are well kept for the hygienic living of the residents.

4. The learned counsel further submits that though the petitioners have been working continuously for almost more than 35 years, their services are not regularized by the respondent and it is gross injustice to continue the petitioners in service of the respondent through contractor(s). The learned counsel submits that their services ought to have been regularized keeping in view the perennial nature of work and also the requirement of //4//

petitioners services to ensure the residents of the Township can live in hygienic conditions.

5. The learned counsel for the petitioners’ places reliance on State of Karnataka and others Vs. M.L.Kesari and others1, the Hon’ble Supreme Court has held that irregular appointees would be entitled for regularization as a one-time measure. K.Srinivasa Rao Vs. State of Andhra Pradesh2, whereby this Court directed the respondents therein to consider the case of the petitioner therein on par with the respondents 4 to 6 therein as one time regularization scheme. M.Ramesh and others Vs. State of Telangana and others3, wherein the High Court of Telangana has after taking into consideration the observations of the Apex Court in various Judgments referred therein and directed the respondents to consider the case of the petitioners for regularization of their services in accordance to law. Mahanadi Coal Fields Limited Vs. Brajrajnagar Coal Mine Workers Union4, the Hon’ble Supreme Court while setting aside the order of the High Court and order in review petition and consequently

1 (2010) 9 SCC 247

2 2020 SCC Online AP 1742 3 2022 SCC Online TS 3171

4 Civil Appeal No(S).4092-4093 of 2024

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directed that the concerned workmen therein shall be entitled to back-wages.

6. Sri.S.Vivek Chandra Sekhar, learned Standing Counsel for the respondent submits that the petitioners were never directly engaged by the respondent and draws attention of the Court that the para 4, 7 and 8 of the counter. It is submitted that the respondents have outsourced certain services through contractors and that the contractors get the work through the manpower available with him. It is also submitted that, it is not the case of the petitioners that their services are required on a daily basis and throughout the year. Maintenance of sever lines and choked manholes would be a seasonal activity generally undertaken d