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Balaji Madhukar Konkanwar v. Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation

Civil Appeal · 2026 INSC 392Decided 20 Apr 2026
C.A. No.-004623-004623 - 2026 (arising out of SLP(C) No. 21724 of 2022)
Justice Sanjay Karol · Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh · Justice Augustine George Masih

Background

The appellant was engaged as a daily-wage Cleaner by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation in 1993 at Rs. 500/month, was orally terminated, and after years of litigation the Industrial Court in 2007 ordered his regularisation from the date he completed 180 days of service. The Corporation resisted compliance and only regularised him in 2011, attaching a fresh condition that full regularisation would require another five years of satisfactory service. The Labour Court in 2020 granted him back wages with 12% interest for the gap period (October 1993 to January 2011), but the Bombay High Court (Nagpur Bench) set that order aside, prompting this appeal.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that the Industrial Court's 2007 finding, that the appellant was entitled to regularisation and back wages from the date he completed 180 days of service, had gone unchallenged and attained finality, and the High Court had erred by ignoring this in setting aside the 2020 Labour Court order. The Court rejected the Corporation's argument that the appellant was estopped from claiming benefits from an earlier date merely because he later accepted a 2011 appointment letter, noting that the letter's five-year condition for regularisation was itself an unfair exercise of the employer's unequal bargaining power against a worker who had already earned regularisation years before. The appeal was allowed and the Labour Court's award of Rs. 8,09,218 in back wages was restored, but the Court reduced the interest rate from 12% to 8% given the long period involved, and additionally awarded Rs. 1,00,000 as litigation costs, warning that the original 12% rate would revive if payment was not made within eight weeks.

Lesson Learnt

An employer cannot use a later appointment letter with unfavourable conditions to defeat rights an employee has already secured through a final, unchallenged court order, accepting a job offer under unequal bargaining power does not amount to waiving previously vested legal entitlements like back wages and regularisation.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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