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When Business Closes: High Court Defines Rights of Consolidated Staff in Retrenchment
In a ruling that clarifies the limits of employment benefits for non-regular workers in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the has underscored that employees engaged on a cannot demand the same treatment as regular, permanent staff during the of a state entity.
The judgment, delivered by Justice Sanjay Dhar in the case of , effectively bars casual or consolidated workers from claiming a right to deployment in other government departments, drawing a sharp line between .
The Path to Litigation The dispute arose following the decision to wind up the , a public sector unit that had been declared a sick unit. While the government facilitated the transfer and deployment of 303 regular employees to various other state-run organizations, 29 employees—including the petitioner—were left behind.
The petitioner, who had been serving in a consolidated capacity since , sought legal intervention to compel his and deployment, arguing that his engagement was essentially a form of granted due to his father’s hazardous service and subsequent death.
Conflicting Perspectives The petitioner contended that his employment, though consolidated, was born out of compassionate grounds. He argued that his transition to a different government department was a legitimate expectation following the dissolution of JKCL, and that his failure to receive his salary since warranted a court mandate for both job security and unpaid wages.
Conversely, the respondents maintained that the petitioner was ineligible for the benefits afforded to regular staff. They clarified that rules () do not apply to heirs of retirees, and that the government’s deployment policy was strictly limited to those holding
