HC slams states for ‘circumventing’ court rulings on staff regularisation

The High Court has come down heavily on the “policy of circumvention” by Punjab and Haryana in matters of regularising long-serving temporary and contractual staff.

Justice Harpreet Singh Brar observed that both states “tend to formulate policies in order to circumvent implementation of judgments rendered by the constitutional courts”, thereby keeping employees “in limbo”.

Justice Brar asserted, “More often than not, the claim for regularisation is neither accepted nor denied and the applicant is kept in limbo unnecessarily. The extended ad hocism of keeping daily wage workers or contractual employees on temporary rolls for decades while extracting regular work is not only unconstitutional but also undermines equality and dignity.”

“The state and its instrumentalities being model employer can’t perpetuate such exploitation and use excuses like financial constraints, non-availability of sanctioned post, and lack of qualification… to deny well-deserved regularisation on account of their perennial nature of long periods of work at par with their counterparts working on regular posts,” Justice Brar asserted.

The observations came as Justice Brar allowed the petition of a worker, who had rendered over 28 years of continuous service. The court held the petitioner’s services could not be denied regularisation because of the absence of a policy reference. It added temporary employees “cannot be forced to bear the brunt of lack of financial resources, when the state had no qualms about continuously taking advantage of their services”.