Jaswan Pragpur MLA welcomes High Court order setting aside law on service conditions

Jaswan Pragpur MLA Bikram Thakur on Monday welcomed the decision of the Himachal Pradesh High Court to repeal the Recruitment and Service Conditions Act. He said that the court order exposed the “anti-employee policies” of the state government. In a statement issued here, Bikram alleged that the Congress government had attempted to undermine the employees’ rights through the legislation but the court intervened and quashed what he termed as an “ill-planned move”, he added.

He claimed that the Act sought to curtail seniority, increments and other service benefits by introducing arbitrary changes to service conditions. He referred specifically to provisions related to the extension of benefits (Para 6) and said that the law restricted full benefits to regular employees while excluding contractual workers. “Even benefits already granted to contractual employees could have been withdrawn under this law, which was unjust and inhuman,” he added.

The MLA said that thousands of contractual employees had approached the High Court, challenging these provisions. He termed the court’s decision as a victory of employees and a setback for the government’s policies. The former minister accused the state government of consistently suppressing employees’ rights over the past three years and failing to grant them their statutory entitlements. “The government claims to be employee-friendly but the reality is quite the opposite,” he added.

Bikram alleged that courts had struck down several decisions of the state government, indicating the lack of legal ground. He criticised the spending of public funds on legal battles, claiming that despite spending crores of rupees on litigation, the government continued to face repeated setbacks.