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Union of India & Ors. v. Sant Lal & Ors. Etc. Etc.

Civil Appeal · 2019 INSC 32Decided 8 Jan 2019
Civil Appeal Nos. 175-176 of 2019
Dr. Justice D.Y. Chandrachud · Justice Hemant Gupta

Background

Eighteen casual Group 'D' workers at a Comptroller & Auditor General training institute in Allahabad had worked since 1986 without being made permanent. A tribunal in 2006 directed the Union of India to prepare a seniority list and consider regularizing them against available posts; the Allahabad High Court upheld this as only a direction to "consider," not a mandate. Years later, the workers discovered that junior casual employees had been regularized ahead of them in breach of that seniority list, and moved the tribunal again, which in 2013 ordered that they be given the same regularization benefit as their juniors. The High Court affirmed this and additionally directed that regularization be considered even at other government establishments if no posts were free at the institute itself.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court held that extending the direction to "other establishments" beyond the institute was not justified, since the dispute was really about regularization at this institute. On the core issue, the Court held that the "one-time measure" principle from the Constitution Bench ruling in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi does not bar relief here, because the Union of India had itself already undertaken a regularization exercise and granted it to junior employees, once an employer does so, it cannot arbitrarily skip over seniors who had put in longer years of casual service. The Court directed that the appellants be regularized strictly by seniority, matching the benefit given to their juniors, with notional (not back-dated) pay fixation, and retiral dues computed for those who had since reached superannuation age, all within three months.

Lesson Learnt

Once a government department starts a regularization exercise for long-serving casual workers, it must apply it fairly by seniority to everyone who qualifies, picking and choosing favoured juniors while bypassing seniors with longer service is arbitrary and can be struck down by courts even years after the "one-time" Uma Devi exercise.

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

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