HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH **** ****

Shri Pal & Ors. ... Petitioners VS.

State of Haryana & Ors. ... Respondents ****

1. Judgment reserved on 11.03.2026 2. Judgment pronounced on 21.04.2026 3. Judgment uploaded on 23.04.2026

4. Whether operative or full judgment Full 5. Delay in pronouncement of full judgment and reasons, if any NA ****

CORAM: HON’BLE MR.JUSTICE SANDEEP MOUDGIL ****

Present: Mr. SK Chauhan, Advocate for the petitioners Ms. Mayuri Lakhanpal, DAG Haryana ****

Sandeep Moudgil, J.

Prayer (1). This writ petition has been filed by the petitioners under Articles 226/227 of Constitution of India praying for issuance of a writ in the nature of certiorari for quashing the orders dated 12.12.2019 (Annexure P16) and 19.12.2019 (Annexure P17) passed by the respondent No.2 rejecting the petitioners’ representations dated 19.02.2018 & 19.03.2019 (Annexures P12 & P13, respectively). They seek a direction to the respondents to regularize their services as Water Pump Operators Gr.III (Class III) instead of Beldar in the pay scale of 950-1400 w.e.f. 31.01.1996 and 31.03.1993 i.e. from the date their juniors were regularized and promoted as such. A further direction is sought to step up their pay at par with similarly situated employees along with consequential benefits with interest @ 18% p.a.

Facts (2). The petitioners were initially engaged as Water Pump Operators (Class III) on daily wages in the Public Health Engineering Department in the years 1983 and 1992 and continued to work against those posts until when the State of Haryana issued Instructions dated 7.3.1996 modifying the policy dated 18.3.1996 for regularisation of work-charged, casual and daily-rated employees who were in service as on 31.01.1996 and had completed the prescribed qualifying service. However, at the stage of implementing these regularisation policies, instead of regularizing them on the post of Water Pump Operator (a Class III post carrying the then higher pay scale), petitioner No.1 was regularised w.e.f. 31.1.1996 as “Beldar”, in the pay scale of 2550-3200 whereas the services of petitioner No.2 were regularised w.e.f. 1.2.1996 as “Beldar”, in the pay scale of 750-940, instead of as Water Pump Operator (WPO), a Class III post having the pay scale of 950-1400, despite the admitted position that they were in fact discharging duties of Water Pump Operators at the relevant time.

(3). On the other hand, various sets of similarly situated employees working as Water Pump Operators under HUDA/HSVP, who had been subjected to the same kind of down-gradation or wrong description at the time of regularisation, approached this Court through CWP No. 811 of 1996 (Randhir Singh v. HUDA), CWP No. 2544 of 1996 (Ramesh Chand & others) and later CWP No. 15011 of 1998 (Ved Singh & others), and this Court consistently directed that such employees must be placed in the cadre/posts on which they were actually working, with arrears of pay and allowances and re- designation as Water Pump Operator/WPO-II, which directions were then implemented by the respondents in favour of those petitioners through speaking orders and consequential office orders.

(4). In spite of this consistent judicial trend and the fact that even similarly situated Chowkidars were promoted as WPO Grade-II and other employees’ regularisation was modified on representation, CWP No. 6015 of 2019 and CWP No. 16016 of 2019 were filed wherein this Court vide order dated 18.9.2019 directed the respondents to pass a speaking order.

(5). The respondents, however, rejected those representations vide impugned orders dated 12.12.2019 and 19.12.2019 (Annexures P16 & 17, respectively), wherein respondent No.2 has gone to the extent of admitting that their regularisation was wrongly made yet has refused to extend to them the same corrective benefits as granted to their comparables, thus giving rise to the present writ petition seeking correction of their regularisation to the Class III Water Pump Operator post