Gurugram: In a stinging indictment of the Haryana government’s employment practices, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered the regularisation of a daily wage worker who served the forest department for 25 years without job security or retirement benefits.
Justice Sandeep Moudgil held that the state’s refusal to regularise long-serving daily wagers like Phoolwati amounted to “exploitation” and violated constitutional guarantees of equality.
“It cannot ever be the intent and spirit of either the law framers or of the court of law as its guardian not to protect a citizen from exploitation and from falling prey to unfair labour practice at the hands of none other than but the state governments themselves,” Justice Moudgil observed 31 December, delivering judgment on a batch of 18 connected petitions.
Engaged as a ‘maali’ (gardener) on daily wages in June 1988 at Saraswati Forest Range in Kaithal, Phoolwati worked for 25 years even as her services were never regularised. She further did not benefit from the government’s regularisation policy of 1996, a situation in contrast to several of her junior colleagues.
In December 2016, Phoolwati was dismissed from service verbally, without any notice.
It was then she approached the labour court in Ambala, which in November 2017 directed the government to reinstate her with continuity of services and 50 percent of her back wages.
The forest department moved the HC against this order, which upheld the labour court’s order in September 2024, but reduced the back wages to 30 percent.
The government reinstated Phoolwati, but did not regularise her services. As a result, Phoolwati did not get any retirement benefits when she reached the age of superannuation in 2020.
She then approached the High Court where the Haryana government argued that for an employee to be regularised, he/she has to be appointed against a sanctioned post and must have worked 240 days per year.
The government cited State of Karnataka vs Uma Devi (2006) judgment, which discouraged backdoor regularisations, in favour of its case.
Justice Moudgil rejected the state’s arguments and held that the labour court’s decision to grant continuity of service cannot be challenged indirectly through administrative objections.
“The respondents’ attempt to now classify the petitioner’s service as fragmented or seasonal is a direct challenge to judicial finality. They cannot be permitted to indirectly nullify a binding award passed by a judicial body,” the court held.
It found that several junior employees were regularised under the 1996 policy, and that her exclusion constituted “hostile discrimination” violating Articles 14 (equality before law) and 16 (equality of opportunity in public employment) of the Constitution.
“Having enjoyed the petitioner’s services for 25 years, the state is stopped from turning around and disowning its obligations on the flimsiest of grounds,” Justice Moudgil wrote. “Such an approach would not only be arbitrary, but would also render the constitutional guarantee of equality a mere illusion.”
‘Not a licence for exploitation’
The HC asserted that the Uma Devi judgment was intended to prevent courts from creating backdoor appointments, not to deny benefits to long-serving employees under government-framed policies.
Citing subsequent Supreme Court rulings in Nihal Singh vs State of Punjab (2013), Prem Singh vs State of Uttar Pradesh (2019), and Jaggo vs Union of India (2025), Justice Moudgil held that employees who have served continuously for over 10 years deserve regularisation as a one-time measure.
“It is well established that the decision in Uma Devi (case) does not intend to penalise employees who have rendered long years of service fulfilling ongoing and necessary functions of the state,” the court noted, quoting from the Jaggo judgment.
The court also invoked the ‘model employer doctrine’, stating that the government has a constitutional obligation to act fairly towards employees who have devoted their working lives to public service.
“The state cannot be permitted to take advantage of its own omission to defeat legitimate claims of its employees,” the judgment emphasised.
Justice Moudgil directed the Haryana government to regularise Phoolwati’s services from 1 February 1996, the cut-off date under the 1996 policy, and release all arrears and retirement benefits within four weeks. The arrears will carry 6 percent annual interest from the date they became due.
The judgment will apply to all 18 connected petitions involving similar cases, the judge ruled.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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