The court determines that long-serving Daily Rated Workers are entitled to regularization under relevant provisions despite initial misclassification.

ORDER

Per:- Sanjeev Gupta, Judicial Member

This is the second round of litigation. In the first round, the applicants seeking regularization of their services under the provisions of SRO 64 of 1994, had approached the Hon’ble High Court of Jammu & Kashmir by filing SWP No. 757 of 2008 which was disposed of by Hon’ble High Court vide order dated 13.08.2009 with direction to respondents to consider the case of the applicants for regularization in accordance with rules and pass appropriate orders within a period of two months. In compliance to directions of the Hon’ble High Court, the respondents considered the case of the applicants for regularization, however, rejected the same vide order dated 11.05.2010 on the ground that their case does not fall within the ambit and provisions of SRO 64 of 1994.

2. Aggrieved of rejection order dated 11.05.2010, the applicants again approached the Hon’ble High Court by medium of SWP No. 2677 of 2010 seeking the following reliefs:-

“i). Writ of Certiorari quashing Order No. PJEH/GE/24 of 2010 dated 11.5.2010 issued by respondent No. 3 whereby on so-called consideration of the case of the petitioners in light of judgement dated 13.8.2009 passed by this Hon’ble Court, the case of the petitioners for the purpose of regularization of their services has been rejected as allegedly not falling under the ambit of provisions of SRO 64 of 1994.

ii). Writ of Mandamus commanding the respondents to reconsider the case of the petitioners and consequently regularize the services of the petitioners under the provisions of SRO 64 of 1994 on the analogy of similarly situated colleagues/persons to whom the benefit of regularization have been accorded, though most of them are much junior to the petitioners herein and having been appointed in the same manner and by the same authorities, receiving the same wages and in similar way to that of the petitioners herein.

iii). Direct the respondents to produce the service records as well of record of regularization of all such colleagues/persons who have been regularized by virtue of different orders detailed in the body of the writ petition as well the service record of the petitioners.”

3. After the reorganization of State of Jammu and Kashmir into Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh and in view of the Notification No. G.S.R. 267 (E) dated 29.04.2020 read with notification No. G.S.R. 317 (E) dated 28.05.2020 issued by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions (Department of Personnel and Training), the jurisdiction to adjudicate upon the lis regarding service disputes of the employees of UT of J&K and Ladakh was conferred upon this Tribunal and while considering the said fact, the record of Service Writ Petition No. 2677 of 2010 was ordered to be transferred by the Hon’ble High Court to this Tribunal on 24.03.2021 and renumbered as Transferred Application No. 5629 of 2021.

4. The brief facts of the case, as stated in the Transferred Application (in short T.A.) are that the applicants were engaged as Daily Rated Workers in PHE Division, Doda on different rates from the year 1989 to 1993. On completion of requisite number of years of service, in terms of provisions of SRO 64 of 1994, the applicants amongst other similarly situated persons were shown figuring in the list of workers recommended for regularization by the concerned authorities at district level to the higher authorities from time to time. The grieva