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Union of India v. Ilmo Devi

Civil Appeal · 2021 INSC 634Decided 7 Oct 2021
Civil Appeal Nos. 5689-5690 of 2021
Justice M.R. Shah · Justice A.S. Bopanna

Background

The respondents worked as part-time, contingent-paid sweepers (less than five hours a day) at a Post Office in Chandigarh, with no regular sanctioned posts existing for that role at that office. After years of litigation and a contempt proceeding, the Postal Department framed a one-time regularization policy, but rejected the respondents' claims because there were no sanctioned posts and they had not completed ten years of service by the relevant cut-off date. The Punjab and Haryana High Court nonetheless directed the Department to revisit its policy and sanction new posts in a phased manner, and granted certain pay benefits to long-serving part-time workers; the Union of India appealed this to the Supreme Court.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court's direction requiring the government to reformulate its regularization policy and create new sanctioned posts, holding that creating or sanctioning posts and framing policy are matters squarely within the executive's domain, not something a court can direct through judicial review under Article 226. Relying on its own precedent (including the Constitution Bench ruling in Umadevi), the Court reiterated that part-time employees not working against any sanctioned post have no legal right to regularization, and that courts cannot issue a mandamus to create posts or dictate policy. However, because the Union of India itself had earlier agreed not to challenge the High Court's separate direction granting minimum basic pay to those who had completed 20 years of part-time service, that specific benefit for the respondents was left undisturbed.

Lesson Learnt

Courts generally cannot force the government to create new jobs, sanction posts, or rewrite its employment policies: the decision over whether and how many posts to create remains an executive, not a judicial, function, even when long-serving contingent workers have strong sympathy on their side.

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

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