After 27 Years On Daily Wages, Orissa HC Orders Peon’s Regularisation Against Sanctioned Vacancy, Citing Co-Worker’s Case

The petitioner was engaged as a Peon/Attendant on daily wages at S.C.S. (Autonomous) College, Puri, in 1999 and claimed uninterrupted service against a continuing need for the work.

In 2010, the College Principal informed the Director of Higher Education that Peon and Attendant posts were vacant and recommended the petitioner, among others, for regular absorption.

After the petitioner’s earlier writ petition resulted in a direction to decide his claim, the Director rejected it on 4 February 2025.

The petitioner also relied on the regularisation of co-employee Gadei Swain, who had been recommended in the same letter and regularised against a sanctioned vacant post following a court judgment.

Articles 14 and 16 require public employment decisions to be fair, non-arbitrary and consistent with equal treatment.

Under Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3), regularisation is not a mode of recruitment; however, paragraph 53 distinguished illegal appointments from irregular appointments and contemplated a one-time consideration of qualifying irregular appointees who had served for at least ten years against sanctioned posts without court protection.

State of Karnataka v. M.L. Kesari explained that this one-time exercise was a responsibility of the State.

The Court also relied on Jaggo v. Union of India, Shripal v. Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad, Dharam Singh v. State of U.P. and Vinod Kumar v. Union of India for the principle that Umadevi should not be applied mechanically to perpetuate long-term precarious employment where the work is continuing and the engagement is not illegal.

The doctrine of negative equality, recognised in Chaman Lal v. State of Punjab and Basawaraj v. Special Land Acquisition Officer, does not ordinarily require replication of an unlawful or erroneous benefit, but the Court held it inapplicable to a benefit granted pursuant to a final judicial determination and implemented by the State.

The Court found the State’s assertion that no sanctioned vacancy existed unsupported and contradicted by the Principal’s 2010 letter identifying vacant posts and recommending the petitioner; the State also did not plead that the petitioner lacked the prescribed qualifications.

It therefore treated the engagement, at most, as irregular rather than illegal.

The petitioner’s ineligibility under the pre-1993 temporary-status scheme did not resolve his separate claim based on long service and a sanctioned vacancy.

Nor, in the Court’s view, did failure to complete ten years by 10 April 2006 conclusively bar consideration after the State had failed to undertake the one-time exercise and had continued to employ him for many years.

The Court considered the petitioner materially comparable to Gadei Swain and found no pleaded distinction between their engagements or circumstances; it also rejected negative equality because Gadei Swain’s regularisation followed a final court judgment and was implemented by the State.

The Director’s order was consequently unsustainable for relying mechanically on the cited instruments and Umadevi while disregarding the vacancy evidence, relevant authorities and parity claim.

It directed the State to regularise the petitioner as a Peon against a sanctioned vacant post at S.C.S. (Autonomous) College, Puri, within eight weeks of production of a certified copy of the judgment, with consequential service benefits admissible in law.

The petitioner was to continue in service in the meantime under the earlier order, and the pending contempt case was left to be dealt with on its own merits.

There was no order as to costs.