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The State of Bihar vs. Jawahar Lal Ram and Others (Civil Appeal No. 2629 of 2023, with connected Civil Appeal No. 2630 of 2023)

Civil Appeal · 2023 INSC 340Decided 10 Apr 2023
Civil Appeal No. 2629 of 2023
B.R. Gavai · Aravind Kumar

Background

The respondents were originally employed by a private computerization contractor (N.I.C.T.) and deputed to work for the Bihar Intermediate Education Council from 1999. After the Council itself later sanctioned posts and formally appointed them, and after the Council was subsequently merged into the Bihar School Education Examination Board, a government scheme was framed in 2012 to regularize employees like them, but the employees were terminated in 2017 for allegedly not meeting the scheme's conditions. After a series of writ petitions, a Single Judge dismissed their case, but a Division Bench of the Patna High Court reversed this and ordered their reinstatement, reasoning mainly that the regularization committee's report had been signed by only one of three members.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court found the Division Bench's reasoning "totally perfunctory". It had not properly engaged with the Single Judge's detailed, well-reasoned findings, and had overlooked that a later government affidavit showed the committee's report had in fact been formally accepted by the State Cabinet and given effect through an official gazette notification. Rather than resolving the underlying legal dispute (which could lead to further rounds of litigation), the Court used its special constitutional power under Article 142 to fashion a practical, one-time solution: given that the employees had worked continuously since 1999 (well before the landmark Uma Devi judgment that restricts regularization of irregularly appointed staff) and that removing them now, after 18+ years, would be devastating to them and their families, the Court directed that they be absorbed into the posts they held since 2005 and allowed to rejoin from 1 May 2023, with full continuity of service and retiral benefits, but without back-wages for the period they were out of work.

Lesson Learnt

When employees have rendered genuinely long, continuous service under government-linked bodies, courts may use extraordinary constitutional powers to craft a fair, practical resolution rather than reopen years of further litigation, but such orders are typically confined to the unique facts of the case and are not meant to set a general precedent for regularization claims.

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

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