After decades of service, Punjabi exam can’t be used to block regularisation: HC

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that an employee without “Middle Standard” pass certificate with Punjabi language can still be regularised after putting in decades of service. Admonishing the state of Punjab for rejecting an employee’s regularisation plea on this sole ground after taking work for 27 years, the bench has held that the qualification never insisted upon during decades of service cannot suddenly be used to deny the welfare benefit.

The admonition came in a case where an employee was denied regularisation on the ground of that he had not passed the Punjabi language examination at the Middle Standard level, despite extracting uninterrupted service for nearly three decades. “Such an approach smacks of arbitrariness and exploitation, while also amounting to a gross violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution,” Justice Harpreet Singh Brar asserted.

Allowing the petition filed by a “Mali” engaged since April 1998, Justice Brar also ordered his regularisation under the Punjab Government’s policy dated May 16, 2023, and made it clear that the state could not rely on rigid technicalities when substantive justice and constitutional guarantees were at stake.

“It is beyond the comprehension of this court that if the requisite qualification was an essential criterion to perform the task, how were the respondents able to extract satisfactory work from the petitioner continuously for 27 long years,” Justice Brar asserted.

The bench added that the respondents accepted and benefited from his services throughout these years. “This glaring contradiction reveals that the qualification was never treated as a functional prerequisite during his service and is now being deployed as a mere technical shield to deny a rightful claim,” Justice Brar observed.

The petitioner had approached the challenging an order dated September 30, rejecting his claim for regularisation. Among other things, his counsel contended the petitioner was appointed in April 1998, had rendered uninterrupted service for over 27 years with a satisfactory record, and was fully covered by the state’s regularisation policy, which entitled employees completing 10 years of service to be regularised.

Taking note of the facts, Justice Brar asserted that nothing adverse regarding the petitioner’s work or conduct had been brought on record and his claim was rejected “solely because he does not have a Middle Standard pass certificate with Punjabi”.

Framing the core issue, Justice Brar questioned whether, “after 27 years of continuous service, an employee can be denied regularisation solely on the ground of not possessing a formal educational qualification that was never insisted upon during his decades of service, especially when similarly situated employees have been regularised”.

Rejecting the state’s reliance on the doctrine of negative equality and the argument that policies must be followed strictly, Justice Brar asserted: “The respondents’ reliance on the doctrine of negative equality and the principle that a policy must be followed strictly is misplaced in the face of the constitutional mandate against exploitation and arbitrariness. When a constitutional right is violated, technicalities of policy cannot override substantive justice.”

Allowing the petition, Justice Brar directed the authorities to regularise the petitioner within six weeks from receiving the order, failing which he would be deemed to have been regularised. The petitioner was also held entitled to counting of past service and consequential benefits in terms of earlier judgments.