Abserving work-charge employees for decades while regularizing juniors constitutes hostile discrimination and warrants retrospective regularization with consequential benefits.

The petitioners were appointed as Additional Assistant Engineers (Civil) Class-III on a work-charge basis by the Gujarat Maritime Board between 1991 and 1993.

Despite serving for over 24 years in perennial roles, they were never regularized in the permanent establishment, leading to the denial of higher grade pay scales and promotional benefits.

Notably, the Board regularized the services of two junior employees (appointed in 1993 and 1995) solely because they belonged to reserved categories, while the petitioners (mostly general category) were excluded.

The High Court had previously directed the State in 2015 to consider their regularization, noting the discriminatory treatment of seniors.

However, the Board rejected the petitioners' claim on 29.07.2016, citing a lack of policy for regularizing general category work-charge employees.

The Court applied the principles of Article 14 regarding equality and non-discrimination.

It heavily relied on the mandate from State of Karnataka v. Umadevi, as refined in Jaggo v. Union of India (2025) and Pawan Kumar v. Union of India (2026), which establishes that employees in "irregular" (not illegal) appointments who have served for over ten years in sanctioned/perennial functions should be regularized as a one-time measure.

It also followed Dharam Singh v. State of U.P. (2025), which cautions that Umadevi cannot be used as a "shield" to justify exploitative long-term "ad-hocism" or to deny parity where duties are identical.

The Court reasoned that the nature of the work performed by the petitioners was "perennial and fundamental" to the Board's functioning, as evidenced by the Board's own admission that regularization would cause no additional financial burden since they were already receiving regular pay and benefits.

The Court found the Board's justification—that juniors were regularized only because of their reserved category status—to be legally untenable and discriminatory in the absence of a specific policy.

The Court observed that one petitioner actually belonged to a reserved category, yet was still denied relief, further proving the arbitrary nature of the rejection.

Following recent Supreme Court precedents, the Court held that procedural formalities or the label of "work-charge" cannot perpetually deny substantive rights accrued through decades of unblemished service.

It held that the petitioners were entitled to regularization upon completion of 10 years of service from their initial appointments.

The Court directed the respondent Board to pass regularization orders by 15.03.2026 and release all consequential benefits, including arrears, to the petitioners (or their legal heirs) by 30.04.2026.

Failure to pay within the stipulated time would attract 6% interest from 01.05.2026 until realization.