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Basant Singh v. State of H.P.

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 9714 of 2016)Decided 26 Sept 2016
Civil Appeal No. 9714 of 2016
Justice Kurian Joseph · Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman

Background

The appellants claimed the Himachal Pradesh government had discriminated against them by refusing, on grounds of delay, to refer their labour disputes to the Labour Court for adjudication, while referring the disputes of other similarly situated workers for adjudication without raising any such delay objection.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found merit in the appellants' claim of unequal treatment, pointing to specific instances where the government had referred comparable disputes of other workers without objecting to delay. It disposed of the appeals with a direction that if disputes of similarly situated persons had been referred for adjudication, the appellants' cases must also be considered for reference on the same basis, ignoring the delay objection, with the government required to act within two months of receiving a copy of the judgment.

Lesson Learnt

A government cannot selectively invoke a technical objection like "delay" to deny some workers a reference to the Labour Court while waiving that same objection for other, similarly placed workers: such inconsistent treatment can be struck down as discriminatory.

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

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