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Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur and Anr. vs. Mukesh Sharma Etc. Etc.

Civil Appeal · 2022 INSC 351Decided 28 Mar 2022
Civil Appeal Nos. 2096-2198 of 2022
M.R. Shah · B.V. Nagarathna

Background

A group of long-serving employees of Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur, working as Chowkidar, Peon, LDC, Staff Nurse, Driver, Security Guard and similar posts for 15 to 30 years on contractual/daily-wage basis through a placement agency: sought regularization of their services. Although the University's own Syndicate had in 1999 regularized six similarly situated employees, it refused to do the same for these respondents. The Rajasthan High Court (Single Judge and then Division Bench) ruled in the employees' favour, directing the University to regularize their services with all consequential (back-dated financial) benefits, and the University appealed to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court had already, by an earlier order dated 07.02.2022, declined to interfere with the High Court's grant of regularization itself, given the employees' 15-30 years of continuous service, but issued limited notice on whether the consequential financial benefits should be restricted to three years before the writ petitions were filed. In this final judgment, the Court balanced the University's financial burden against the employees' long service: it modified the High Court's orders to hold that actual monetary consequential benefits would apply only for the three years preceding the filing of the writ petitions, but the employees would get notional continuity of service and regularization benefits from the date on which similarly situated employees had earlier been regularized. The appeals were thus partly allowed, with no order as to costs.

Lesson Learnt

Courts recognize the right of long-serving contractual employees to regularization, but when it comes to fixing the financial consequences of that regularization, they may limit back-pay to a reasonable recent period (here, three years before filing) while still preserving continuity of service for other purposes: a practical middle path between employee rights and institutional financial burden.

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

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