Bengaluru CAT Orders ASI To Pay Casual Worker Arrears From 2011, Matching Colleagues Granted Temporary Status Earlier

The applicant, a casual labourer with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), was found to have worked 243½ days in 1988 and to have been in employment on 1 September 1993.

In an earlier proceeding, the Tribunal held that he qualified for temporary status under the 1993 Scheme and directed the respondents to grant that status and consider consequential benefits.

The ASI granted him temporary status by order dated 4 July 2023, but made it effective only from the date of the Tribunal’s order, 12 September 2022.

The applicant sought arrears from 12 March 2011, relying on evidence that other ASI casual labourers had received temporary status and higher pay from that date.

He brought this OA challenging the effective date and seeking arrears.

The Tribunal applied the Casual Labourers (Grant of Temporary Status and Regularisation) Scheme of Government of India, 1993, which came into force on 1 September 1993.

Under paragraph 4(i), temporary status was to be conferred on casual labourers who were in employment on the date of the Scheme and had rendered at least one year’s continuous service, meaning engagement for at least 240 days (or 206 days in a five-day-week office).

The Tribunal also relied on its earlier order in OA No. 117/2016, which found that the applicant met the Scheme’s qualifying requirements and was entitled to temporary status and benefits under the Scheme.

The Tribunal treated the applicant’s qualifying service and employment on 1 September 1993 as established by its earlier decision.

It found that the respondents’ order granting temporary status from 12 September 2022 did not specify a valid basis for that date and that the earlier order had not limited the grant to the date on which it was made.

The Tribunal also relied on the pay records and RTI information showing that other employees had received temporary status earlier and were paid more than the applicant; the respondents had not disputed that evidence or justified the difference.

It therefore concluded that the applicant should receive temporary status and consequential arrears from 12 March 2011, the date from which the other similarly situated employees had received temporary status.

It quashed the order dated 4 July 2023 insofar as it granted temporary status only from the date of that order, and directed the respondents to grant the applicant temporary status and arrears of pay and allowances at par with his colleagues and juniors from 12 March 2011 onwards.

The directions were to be implemented within eight weeks of receipt of the certified copy of the order; no costs were awarded.