Long continuous service as part-time workers creates legitimate expectation for regularization and minimum wages, overriding technical exclusions.

ORDER

Per: - Rajinder Singh Dogra, Judicial Member

1. The applicant has filed the present Original Application under Section19 of the Administrative Tribunals Act, 1985 seeking the following reliefs: -

Quash the Order No.DHSJ/Legal/15286-90 dated 05-01-2022 issued by the respondent No.2 by virtue of which the case of the applicants for regularization of their services has been rejected.

b) direct the official respondents to reconsider the case of the applicants for regularizing the services of the applicants in Health and Medical Education Department on the analogy of aforesaid Zakir Hussain.

c) Direct the respondents to grant all the monetary, seniority and other consequential benefits to the applicants and release the salary as per the Minimum Wages Act.

d) any other interim or final relief which the Hon'ble Tribunal may deem fit and appropriate in the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case.

2. The facts of the case as averred by the applicant in his pleadings, are as follows: -

a) The applicants, namely Mohd. Ashraf and Farooq Ahmed, are permanent residents of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and claim entitlement to the protections guaranteed under the Constitution of India as well as benefits flowing from statutory rules, notifications and executive instructions applicable to Government employees from time to time. They assert that they were initially engaged as Part Time Safaiwalas on consolidated remuneration, the first applicant on 01.03.2000 in Block Thathri and the second applicant on 08.04.2000 in Block Ghat, District Doda. Copies of the engagement orders and related communications have been placed on record.

b) According to the applicants, although their engagement was described as part-time, they have continuously been discharging duties of a full-time nature for more than twenty-one years with honesty, sincerity and to the complete satisfaction of the departmental authorities. It is their categorical assertion that the nature of work entrusted to them has never been intermittent or casual, but regular and perennial, akin to duties performed by regular Class-IV employees in the Health Department. On the strength of such long and uninterrupted service commencing from the year 2000, the applicants claim that they have acquired a legitimate expectation of regularization.

c) The applicants rely heavily upon the Jammu and Kashmir Civil Services (Special Provisions) Act, 2010, contending that the said enactment was specifically framed to provide one-time regularization to employees appointed on ad-hoc, contractual or consolidated basis, and that Section 5 thereof covers their case. They further assert that they were also entitled to regularization under SRO-520 of 2010 and other allied policies issued by the Government from time to time. Despite repeated representations seeking regularization of service and enhancement of wages, no effective decision was taken by the respondents and only assurances were allegedly extended.

d) It is further pleaded that several similarly situated persons, including one Zakir Hussain, who was also working as a Part Time Safaiwala, were regularized by the respondents vide Government Orders issued on 30.07.2007. The applicants claim that denial of similar treatment to them amounts to hostile discrimination and violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. It is also pleaded that in response to directions issued by the Government, details of Part Time Safaiwalas were called for by the Director Health Services, Jammu in September 2019, and requisite information was furnished by the concern