Administrative authorities must implement tribunal directions to condone minor shortfalls and confer work-charged status.

Sahib Singh was engaged as a daily-wage Beldar by the respondents from 1994. His manday record showed 303 days in 1994, but fewer than 240 days in several years between 1995 and 2005, followed by more than 240 days in subsequent years.

He sought conferment of work-charged status by condoning the shortfall in the relevant years.

The erstwhile Himachal Pradesh Administrative Tribunal, relying on the Division Bench judgment in *CWP No. 4493 of 2009*, directed the respondents to consider and grant him work-charged status with consequential benefits after counting his continuous employment from 1994.

Instead, the respondents passed Office Order dated 22 June 2018, rejecting his claim on the ground that he had not completed 240 days in each calendar year from 1995 to 2005.

During the pendency of the writ petition, Sahib Singh died and his legal representatives were brought on record.

Whether the respondents lawfully rejected the claim for work-charged status by independently applying the 240-days-per-calendar-year requirement despite the Tribunal’s directions to condone the shortfall in days in terms of *CWP No. 4493 of 2009*.

Whether the Tribunal’s order required a fresh adjudication of the petitioner’s entitlement or mandated implementation of the direction to confer work-charged status after condoning the shortage of days.

The Court applied the principle laid down by the Division Bench in *CWP No. 4493 of 2009*, decided on 14 December 2009, that a shortage of a few days in individual years may be condoned where the worker has rendered continuous service and has otherwise completed the requisite period for conferment of work-charged status.

It further applied the rule that an administrative authority must implement a judicial order in its true letter and spirit and cannot misconstrue a direction to grant consequential relief as merely requiring a fresh, unrestricted consideration of the employee’s claim.

The applicable administrative norms required completion of the prescribed period of continuous service with 240 days’ work in a calendar year, subject to condonation of a shortfall of a few days in appropriate cases.

The Court held that the Tribunal had accepted the petitioner’s case as being covered by *CWP No. 4493 of 2009* and had directed that his continuous employment be counted from 1994, with the shortage of days being condoned.

The respondents nevertheless treated the Tribunal’s order as a direction to reconsider the claim afresh and rejected it solely because the petitioner had not completed 240 days in each year from 1995 to 2005.

This approach defeated the substance of the Tribunal’s order.

Since the manday shortfall was the precise issue that the Tribunal had directed the respondents to condone in accordance with the Division Bench precedent, the respondents could not rely on that same shortfall to reject the claim.

The impugned order was therefore contrary to the binding judicial directions and was unsustainable in law.

Office Order dated 22 June 2018 was quashed and set aside.

The respondents were directed to confer work-charged status upon the original petitioner by condoning the shortage of days during the period between 1995 and 2005, in accordance with the Tribunal’s order and the judgment in *CWP No. 4493 of 2009*.

The status was to be granted from the due date, together with all consequential benefits.