IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH

126 CWP-3714-2026 Date of Decision: February 09, 2026 Suresh Kumar .....Petitioner VERSUS State of Haryana and others ...Respondents CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE HARPREET SINGH BRAR Present : Mr. Udayveer Singh with Mr. Amit Khari, Advocates for the petitioner.

Mr. Piyush Khanna, Addl. AG, Haryana.

Mr. Prince Singh, Advocate for respondents No.2 to 5.

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HARPREET SINGH BRAR, J. (Oral)

1. The present writ petition has been filed under Article 226/227 of the Constitution of India with a prayer for issuance of an appropriate writ in the nature of mandamus for directing the respondent to consider the petitioner for regular/permanent employment in accordance with the applicable policy of the Haryana Government and further praying for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing respondent No.2 to take the appropriate decision on the representation dated 15.09.2025 (Annexure P-4), whereby no action had been taken on the grievance of the petitioner.

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner, inter alia, contends that the petitioner was appointed as a Truck Driver on DC rates w.e.f. 12.09.2006 against a sanctioned vacant post in the respondent-Nigam, as is evident from the appointment letter dated 15.09.2006 (Annexure P-1). The petitioner has been continuously working for almost 20 years without any complaint or adverse remark, as is discernible from the experience certificate dated 22.12.2025 (Annexure P-2). It is further submitted that the Government of Haryana formulated a Regularization Policy dated 18.06.2014 (Annexure P-3) for regularizing the services of employees working on contract/daily wages who had completed a minimum of three years of service as on 28.05.2014. Despite the petitioner being fully eligible for regularization under the said policy, his services were not regularized; rather, his juniors, who were appointed much later, have been regularized under the same policy. For redressal of his grievance, the petitioner submitted a detailed representation dated 15.09.2025 (Annexure P-4), which has remained unconsidered till date. Learned counsel further submits that the petitioner is performing duties at par with his regular counterparts, the work extracted from him is perennial in nature, and that he is working for more than 10 hours a day.

3. Per contra, learned counsel for respondent Nos. 2 to 5 has opposed the prayer made by learned counsel for the petitioner and submits that the reliance placed on the regularization policy of the Government of Haryana is misplaced, as the respondent-Nigam is an autonomous body and has not adopted the said policy (Annexure P-3). It is further submitted that the petitioner’s claim cannot be considered under the aforesaid policy and that the petitioner was initially appointed on a part-time basis for 89 days.

4. I have heard the learned counsel for the parties and have gone through the case file with their able assistance. It transpires that the petitioner has been working as a Truck Driver since 12.09.2006 and has continued in service without any adverse remarks. The work extracted from the petitioner is perennial in nature, a fact which has not been controverted by learned counsel for the respondents. There is also no dispute that the petitioner is engaged as a daily wager and that the work performed by him is indispensable to the functioning of the respondent-Nigam.

5. This Court has been constrained to observe a trend where long term employees are engaged on ad hoc basis, in spite of the perennial nature of the services rendered by them. The State, being a constitutional employer, cannot be allowed to exploit its temporary employees under the garb of lack of sanctioned posts or inability of the employees to meet educational qualifications for regular posts, when they have been consistently serving its instrumentality for a significant time period. Such an approach would be violative of fundamental rights of the temporary employees e