Punjab govt ordered to pay Rs 5 lakh for neglecting retrenched worker’s rights

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a State’s prolonged inaction in extending a judicially recognised service benefit “compromises the very essence of a welfare state”, while awarding Rs 5 lakh compensation to a work-charged employee who remained entangled in litigation for nearly three decades despite a binding precedent in his favour.

“This court cannot help but observe that the very essence of a welfare state, as envisioned by our Constitution, is compromised when the instrumentalities of the State itself become a source of protracted litigation… Once a competent court has settled a legal issue and granted a specific relief to a set of employees, the State is under a solemn obligation to extend the same benefit to all other similarly situated individuals without forcing them to embark upon a fresh and arduous legal journey,” Justice Harpreet Singh Brar asserted.

Holding that the State’s refusal to honour an identical claim violated the mandate of a model employer, Justice Brar asserted that “to grant relief to one and deny it to another identically placed is the very definition of arbitrariness prohibited under Article 14”.

Justice Brar stressed that State authorities were required to act as “a catalyst for the resolution of disputes, not the cause of their proliferation”. The assertion came as the bench faulted Punjab for fostering avoidable litigation that dragged on since the late 1980s.

The bench observed that the petitioner — appointed as an “earthwork mistri” in 1978 and retrenched in 1985 — was denied absorption despite a categorical high court direction in 1989 and despite a clear undertaking by the Advocate-General before the Supreme Court in 1995.

Invoking the classical maxim “boni judices est causas litium dirimere” indicating it was a good judge’s duty to prevent litigation, Justice Brar asserted that the courts must ensure their decisions did not become breeding grounds for fresh litigation.

“Once a competent court has granted a certain relief to one set of employees, their similarly-situated counterparts must not be forced to move the courts by denying them an identical relief. Furthermore, under the principle of stare decisis, the decision of the competent court ought to be honoured to promote predictability and consistency in the law,” Justice Brar asserted

Recounting the binding directions, the court asserted that the 1989 judgment mandated absorption of retrenched ASHP employees within six months, a direction “declaratory in nature and not confined to the employees who filed the writ petition”.

Justice Brar added the petitioner “indisputably” fell within the class protected both by the judgment and by the Advocate-General’s undertaking to issue appointment letters to “the employees whose services were terminated from Anandpur Sahib Hydel Project”. Yet, while some employees were absorbed, while the petitioner was excluded without justification.

“The sufferance of the petitioner stems from the State’s failure to comply with the judicial directions issued in his favour, and later the spirit of the undertaking given by its own Advocate-General before the Supreme Court. While he diligently pursued his legal remedies across multiple judicial tiers, the State apparatus remained inert to his legitimate claims and repeated representations.”

Noting the petitioner’s advanced age and the impracticality of ordering reinstatement with back wages after decades, the court held that he had “endured significant hardship primarily due to the administrative apathy and recalcitrance of the respondent-State, without any fault on his own part.” Disposing of the petition, Justice Brar directed the State to pay Rs 5 lakh as “a lump sum amount”.