‘Sympathy isn’t right’: Calcutta High Court denies bank’s canteen boy of 40 years permanent job

Criticising the bank’s conduct and describing its administrative indecisiveness as “deprecating and disapproving”, the order said that a court of equity does not convert sympathy into constitutional rights in favour of the petitioner; its compassion must remain tethered to legality.

Findings

• The petitioner’s entry into service was indubitably through an employees’ association, constituted by a canteen committee and an autonomous entity in the functioning and not connected to the statutory recruitment framework of the bank.
• The petitioner’s claim of absorption into the subordinate cadre initially lacks the foundational employer-employee relationship, which had been the sine qua non for invoking Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India in matters of public employment.
• Legitimate expectation cannot override statutory recruitment schemes nor compel the state to create posts or alter the structure of public employment.
• Failure to produce decades-old records, though regrettable, cannot create a substantive right ex-nihilo.
• The petitioner, having crossed the age of superannuation, legally disadvantages his claim.
• Even if the right had survived, which, however, did not fructify, it rendered the claim to be infructuous by efflux of time.
• The invitation of an application under the scheme did not crystallise into a vested right, but the petitioner’s application should have been assessed impartially, at par with similar canteen boys.
• The petitioner’s right never accrued to be vested in nature and cannot be sustained in perpetuity.
• Administrative lapses, however, in strict terms cannot be equated with mala fides or hostility.
• The bank should have informed the petitioner of the reason for its refusal of candidature under the schemes, though it accepted the service of the petitioner on numerous occasions as a ‘Badli’ sweeper, etc.
• The petitioner’s long service, though earnest and humble, cannot by fiat be transferred into a public post.
• The court cannot regularise outside of the statutory framework, violating Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, unsettling the discipline of the public recruitment.

Background

• The petitioner began his service at the Bhadreswar Branch of the United Bank of India on July 6, 1980, as a canteen boy with a monthly salary of Rs 60.
• Over the course of his employment, he was frequently entrusted with duties beyond canteen work, including collecting income tax challans, handling official documentation, and serving as a ‘Badli’ sweeper in the absence of designated staff.
• Between 1992 and 2011, the bank issued several circulars intended as a one-time measure to absorb eligible canteen laborers into the subordinate cadre.
• The petitioner alleged that despite fulfilling all eligibility criteria and submitting multiple applications, he was consistently denied interviews and his representations were left in administrative limbo while similarly situated employees in other branches were absorbed.
• The counsel for the petitioner, advocate Sudipta Dasgupta, Sitirtha Nayek, and Suryatapa Das, submitted that the bank’s persistent non-consideration was arbitrary, whimsical, and discriminatory, violating the petitioner’s right to equality and dignity.
• They further argued that the petitioner, aged beyond 60 years, transgressing the age of regular appointment, should not be denied relief merely because the authorities failed to act when they were required to.
• Appearing for the bank, advocate R N Majumder, S M Obaidullah, R Choudhury, and S Chakraborty submitted that the petitioner was never a bank employee, as he was engaged by the United Bank of India Employees’ Association, an autonomous entity.