The Orissa High Court has come to the rescue of 104 workers whose jobs had not been made permanent since 1994 due to administrative apathy. The court directed the government to regularise them retrospectively and provide them with all benefits within three months.
Court criticises prolonged delay
Calling the prolonged delay — during which 21 of the employees have passed away — in regularisation as arbitrary and unjust and one that violated natural justice, the court hoped officials will get rid of their colonial mindset and learn to treat citizens with dignity.
The High Court was hearing a case that dates back to 1992-93, when 105 individuals were engaged as casual labourers following a selection process. They were subsequently regularised through five separate orders issued in January and February 1994. However, on April 7, 1994, within weeks of the regularisation, the Director of Printing, Stationery & Publication placed the order in abeyance, resulting in prolonged litigation.
Division bench quashes orders
A division bench of Justices Krishna Shripad Dixit and Chittaranjan Dash recently quashed both the 1994 “abeyance order” issued by the director and a later State Administrative Tribunal order, terming them legally unsustainable.
“All actions of government authorities should be animated with human values like dignity and compassion, to say the least. Neither the stand of government nor the impugned order of tribunal reflects this. Therefore, they need to be quashed with costs, so that the officials will wake up from the slumber of their colonial mind-set and learn to treat the citizens with dignity, and not as slaves,” the bench observed in its April 20 judgment, a copy of which was uploaded on Thursday.
The bench delivered the judgment while considering two separate petitions — one by 94 employees filed in 1994, and another by eight employees in 2012. Two of them did not file a petition, while the whereabouts of another employee was unknown.
Benefits for all affected workers
Taking note of the passage of time, the bench said 57 employees have since retired and 21 have died, while 26 are still in service. It directed the state to extend full service and monetary benefits to all affected individuals from 1994 onwards, including payment of dues to retirees and families of deceased employees within three months.
The bench also imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 per petitioner, which would be waived if the government complies with the directions within the stipulated period. Delay in implementation will attract interest at the rate of 1% for the first month, and 2% for the following months, recoverable from erring officials, the bench warned.
Flawed tribunal proceedings
The High Court noted that the situation took a crucial turn when the director himself kept the abeyance order in abeyance on April 7, 1994, effectively restoring the employees’ regular status. Despite this, the tribunal failed to treat the matter as infructuous and kept the order in abeyance in an interim directive on April 8, 1994. The petitions were transferred to the high court following abolition of the State Administrative Tribunal in 2019.
Calling this a “clear error apparent on the face of the record,” the bench held that the tribunal should have either closed the case at that stage or set aside the April 7 order outright, especially since it violated principles of natural justice.
Rejecting the state’s claim that the appointments were irregular or against non-existent posts, the court observed that the workers had been selected, found eligible, and had served for years without complaint. It also pointed out that government records themselves showed a “perennial requirement” for their services.
