An undertaking relinquishing permanent-status benefits bars a later claim for 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.

On 31 August 2005, a Section 12(3) settlement was entered into between the management and the union. The respondent gave an undertaking that he would not claim the benefit of the competent authority’s order, and his services were regularised under the settlement with effect from 1 September 2005.

In 2014, he sought a direction for consideration of his claim for regularisation from completion of 480 days’ service. Following an order directing consideration of his representation, the Corporation rejected the claim in 2023. The respondent successfully challenged that rejection in W.P. No. 10555 of 2024; the Corporation appealed.

Whether the respondent could claim retrospective regularisation based on the competent authority’s 2005 order after undertaking not to claim its benefit under the Section 12(3) settlement and accepting regularisation under that settlement.

Whether the respondent’s delayed claim, brought without challenging the settlement or the consequential regularisation order, could be sustained.

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, is binding on the parties under Section 18(3); workmen who accept regularisation pursuant to such a settlement cannot, in the circumstances considered by the Court, later claim retrospective regularisation under the Permanent Status Act.

The Court also applied the doctrines of laches and acquiescence: an unexplained, unreasonable delay may defeat a claim, and a party who stands by while an inconsistent arrangement is acted upon may be precluded from later challenging it.

It relied on Prabhakar v. Joint Director, Sericulture Department (2015) 15 SCC and the Division Bench decision in Managing Director, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Limited v. O. Veeraiyya (2025) MHC 2050.

The respondent had expressly undertaken not to claim the benefit of the competent authority’s order, accepted regularisation from 1 September 2005 under the Section 12(3) settlement, and did not challenge either the settlement or the regularisation order.

The Court held that he could not later seek retrospective regularisation on the basis of the earlier order, particularly after an unexplained delay of about nine years.

It distinguished the authorities cited by the respondent because, unlike this case, they involved no undertaking relinquishing the claim; it also observed that delay, laches and acquiescence had not been considered in those cases.

It set aside the order dated 1 October 2024 in W.P. No. 10555 of 2024, allowed the writ appeal, made no order as to costs, and closed the connected miscellaneous petition.