Deemed continuous service carries consequential regularisation benefits, despite denial of back wages.

The respondent was engaged by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (now the Municipal Corporation of Delhi) on a casual/daily-wage basis from 19 September 1988, and his services were terminated on 19 August 1989.

In 2007, the High Court set aside the Labour Court’s decision and directed his reinstatement, deeming him to be in continuing service on his original terms and conditions, but denying compensation and back wages for the intervening period.

The respondent later challenged the Corporation’s decision to regularise him only from 2 March 2011.

The Central Administrative Tribunal allowed his application, directing that his regularisation be ante-dated to the date on which comparable daily-wage workers were regularised and that his seniority be appropriately fixed.

The Corporation challenged that order in this writ petition.

Whether the respondent’s earlier statement giving up his claim for regularisation barred him from seeking regularisation based on the High Court’s direction deeming him to be in continuous service.

Whether the respondent’s alleged gainful employment after termination affected his entitlement to regularisation from the date comparable workers were regularised.

The Court applied the principle that a deeming fiction gives effect to the consequences that naturally flow from it, subject to any express limitation in the order creating the fiction.

The 2007 High Court judgment deemed the respondent to have remained in service on his original terms and conditions, while expressly excluding compensation and back wages for the intervening period.

That judgment had not been challenged and had attained finality.

No statute or other precedent was identified as a basis for the decision.

The Court held that the respondent’s earlier relinquishment of regularisation arose in the context of the original industrial dispute.

The subsequent direction deeming him to be in continuing service carried the ordinary consequences of continuity of service, apart from the expressly excluded compensation and back wages; it therefore supported regularisation from the date comparable workers were regularised.

Likewise, any gainful employment after termination could affect the claim to back wages, but did not displace the effect of the continuous-service direction or alter the relevant regularisation date.