Om Prakash Banerjee vs. The State of West Bengal & Ors.
Background
The appellant was engaged as a casual daily-wage worker by a West Bengal municipality in 1991 and was later put on probation and then appointed clerk, but despite multiple High Court directions over more than two decades, the municipality never formally regularised his service, even while several similarly-placed and junior co-workers were regularised. He kept filing representations and writ petitions from 1999 onward; his final writ petition and subsequent intra-court appeal were dismissed by the Calcutta High Court on the ground of delay and citing the Constitution Bench ruling in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi, which generally bars regularisation of temporary employees. He retired in 2021, after 30 years of service, without ever having been regularised.
Decision Breakdown
The Supreme Court held that Umadevi did not apply here because the appellant's case rested not on a general claim to regularisation but on the specific violation of Articles 14 and 16 caused by treating him differently from identically-placed (and even junior) co-employees who had been regularised, despite the municipality's own records and prior court orders acknowledging his entitlement to absorption. Relying on U.P. State Electricity Board v. Pooran Chandra Pandey, the Court held that Umadevi cannot be applied mechanically without examining the specific facts, and that denying regularisation to someone who had put in decades of service while similarly-situated colleagues were regularised was arbitrary and discriminatory. The Court set aside the High Court's judgment and held the appellant entitled to back wages and benefits from 1991 with 10% interest, though it made no order as to costs.
Lesson Learnt
The general rule against regularising casual/temporary employees (from Umadevi) is not an automatic bar in every case. Where an employer has selectively regularised some employees while arbitrarily excluding a similarly-placed one despite court orders and its own records supporting that person's claim, courts can step in on grounds of equality under Articles 14 and 16.