A workman who relinquishes permanent-status claims under a 12(3) settlement cannot later seek retrospective regularisation.

The respondent, a temporarily engaged employee of the Transport Corporation, obtained an order from the competent authority under the Tamil Nadu Industrial Establishments (Conferment of Permanent Status to Workmen) Act, 1981, on 31 May 2005. A Section 12(3) settlement was subsequently entered into between the Union and the Corporation on 31 August 2005. The respondent gave an undertaking that he would not claim benefits under the authority’s order, and his services were regularised with effect from 1 September 2005.

In 2014, he sought a direction requiring the Corporation to consider regularisation from completion of 480 days’ service. Following a direction to consider his representation, the Corporation rejected it in 2023. The respondent challenged that rejection, and the Single Judge granted him the benefit of the 2005 order. The Corporation appealed.

Whether the respondent, having accepted regularisation under the 31 August 2005 settlement and undertaken not to claim the benefit of the competent authority’s order, could later seek retrospective regularisation under the Permanent Status Act.

Whether the respondent’s unexplained delay and failure to challenge the settlement and consequential regularisation order barred the relief granted by the Single Judge.

Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Establishments (Conferment of Permanent Status to Workmen) Act, 1981, provides the statutory basis for conferring permanent status on eligible workmen.

A settlement under Section 12(3) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, binds the parties; the Division Bench authority quoted by the Court also relied on Section 18(3) of that Act to affirm the binding effect of such a settlement.

Under the doctrines of laches and acquiescence, a litigant may be denied relief for an unexplained, unreasonable delay or where the litigant stands by while conduct inconsistent with the asserted right proceeds [p. 7, citing Prabhakar v. Joint Director, Sericulture Department, (2015) 15 SCC 1].

The Court also followed the Division Bench decision in Managing Director, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Ltd. v. O. Veeraiyya (2025 MHC 2050), as followed in R. Rajendran v. Metropolitan Transport Corporation (Chennai) Ltd. (2026 MHC 2500), that workmen who accepted regularisation under the settlement and gave up the earlier order could not later claim retrospective regularisation under the Permanent Status Act.

The respondent had expressly undertaken not to claim the benefit of the competent authority’s order and accepted regularisation under the settlement from 1 September 2005. He did not challenge either the settlement or the consequential regularisation order, and there was no valid explanation for the delay before seeking retrospective regularisation.

The Court therefore held that he could not accept the settlement’s benefits and later claim a more advantageous effective date under the earlier order. It distinguished the authorities relied on by the respondent because, unlike this case, they involved no comparable undertaking and did not address delay, laches, or acquiescence.

It set aside the Single Judge’s order dated 1 October 2024, allowed the writ appeal, made no order as to costs, and closed the connected miscellaneous petition.