The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday came down sharply on the Haryana Government for denying regularisation and retirement benefits to daily wage workers who served for decades in the Forest Department. Justice Sandeep Moudgil of the High Court held that the state’s conduct amounts to “unfair labour practice” and is “wholly insensitive and unbecoming of a welfare State”.
The court ruled that the petitioners, led by Phoolwati — a Group-D daily wage labourer who joined service in 1988, are entitled to regularisation despite the state’s objections based on the Uma Devi judgment. Phoolwati was verbally terminated on December 26, 2016.
Deciding a batch of 18 connected writ petitions, Justice Moudgil allowed the petitions on December 31, set aside the state’s speaking order dated October 1, 2024, and directed that the petitioners be regularised under the 1996 regularisation policy “from the due date” with all consequential benefits. These include retirement dues and arrears with 6 per cent interest.
The judge clarified that “this judgment shall govern all the connected matters claiming regularisation under the 1996 policy with similar facts”, extending relief to all similarly placed daily wagers whose cases were heard together.
Petitioners denied retirement benefits
Phoolwati was engaged as a mali/labourer on daily wages on June 10, 1988, in the Saraswati Forest Range, Kaithal, and continued on the muster roll without a formal appointment letter. The court recorded that “her work remained satisfactory throughout and no adverse record was ever reported”.
Despite state policies issued in 1996 and 2003, and a clarificatory notification in 2014 for regularisation of eligible Group-C and Group-D daily wagers, their services were never regularised, even though they fulfilled the eligibility conditions under the 1996 policy and “several similarly situated and junior employees were granted regularization”.
Phoolwati’s termination was later set aside by the Labour Court, Ambala, which ordered reinstatement with continuity of service and 50 per cent back wages. The award was upheld by the High Court, with back wages reduced to 30 per cent.
On the first issue, the court held that the Labour Court’s award granting reinstatement with continuity of service gives the petitioners a legally enforceable right to be treated as in uninterrupted service from 1988 for all service-related benefits, including regularisation.
The court described unlawful termination as “nothing short of an unjust expropriation of the workman’s right to labour and his rightful livelihood”. It stated that when such action is undone, “the law intervenes not merely to correct the wrong, but to restore the equilibrium which the employer’s unlawful act has disturbed”.
The court rejected the state’s attempt to retrospectively portray the work as seasonal, terming it “a direct challenge to judicial finality”, and held that the petitioner must be treated as having continued in uninterrupted service from 1988.
Turning to the 1996 policy, the court noted that following the March 18, 1996 amendment, daily-rated Group-D employees with three years of service as of January 31, 1996, who had worked at least 240 days in each year with no break exceeding one month, “shall be regularised”. Justice Moudgil held that all these conditions were fully satisfied in the present case.
‘Benefit becomes a vested entitlement’
Invoking the doctrine of accrued or crystallised rights, the court held that once an employee fulfils all conditions of a policy while it is in force, “the benefit is no longer contingent but becomes a vested entitlement which cannot be retrospectively defeated by subsequent administrative withdrawal”.
On the issue of discrimination, the court held that the denial of regularisation to the petitioners, when several employees performing identical duties under the same policy framework and even junior to them had been regularised, violates Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.
Contention that petitioners were “back-door entrants” rejected
Invoking the Model Employer Doctrine, the court rejected the state’s contention that the petitioners were “back-door entrants” not recruited through advertisement.
“The length of service in the instant case is good enough and a strong reason weighing with this court to hold that there is a regular need of work and her services are required, but the state government is probably shrugging off its responsibility,” Justice Moudgil observed.
The court further directed that arrears of pay and delayed retiral dues shall carry interest at 6 per cent per annum from the date they became due until actual realisation. The state has been ordered to complete the exercise within four weeks so that “the petitioner is not further made to suffer for no fault of her own”. By holding that the judgment will govern all connected matters involving similar facts, the ruling will regularise all 18 petitioners in the batch and is likely to have wider implications for long-serving Group-D workers in Haryana’s Forest Department and beyond.
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