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Shripal & Anr. v. Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad

Civil Appeal · 2025 INSC 144Decided 31 Jan 2025
Civil Appeal No. 8157 of 2024 with connected Civil Appeal Nos. 8158-8179 of 2024
Justice Vikram Nath · Justice Prasanna B. Varale

Background

A group of gardeners (Malis) had worked in the Horticulture Department of Ghaziabad Nagar Nigam since around 1998 without formal appointment letters, and were denied minimum wages and statutory benefits. After they raised an industrial dispute in 2004 seeking regularisation, their services were terminated orally in 2005 while that dispute was still pending: allegedly in retaliation. The Labour Court gave conflicting awards in different batches of similar cases, and the Allahabad High Court ultimately confined the workers to continued daily-wage engagement without meaningful back wages or reinstatement.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that terminating the workmen while conciliation proceedings were pending, without following the mandatory procedure under Sections 6E and 6N of the U.P. Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, was illegal. It found the workers had performed essential, perennial municipal duties for years and could not be left in permanent uncertainty merely because of municipal budget or recruitment-rule concerns. The Court quashed the termination, ordered reinstatement with continuity of service, granted 50% back wages, and directed the municipal corporation to start a fair regularisation process within six months without imposing retroactive eligibility criteria.

Lesson Learnt

Workers who perform continuous, essential duties for years cannot be kept indefinitely on daily wages or dismissed without due process, especially while their demand for regularisation is legally pending: statutory safeguards for workmen override administrative or budgetary convenience.

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

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