Delayed claims for regularisation may be denied for laches despite parity with earlier beneficiaries.

The petitioners, employed as Technical Assistants from 2008 and 2010, sought absorption as Work Inspectors under G.O.(Ms). No. 54 dated 23.05.2017.

That Government Order followed an earlier direction in W.P. No. 5203 of 2016 to consider Technical Assistants for promotion against available Work Inspector vacancies; 32 persons were subsequently regularised.

The petitioners contended that other omitted employees, including persons appointed after 2001, had also been regularised and that they were therefore entitled to parity.

They sought consideration of their representations, submitted in 2021 and 2022, and absorption with monetary and service benefits from the date of the Government Order.

The State opposed the claims, relying on the petitioners’ lack of service before the 2001 cut-off, the limited scope of the earlier orders, and delay and laches.

1. Whether the petitioners were entitled to the benefit of G.O.(Ms). No. 54 dated 23.05.2017, including absorption as Work Inspectors, on the basis of their status as omitted persons and the treatment of other employees.

2. Whether the petitioners’ delay in seeking relief barred the requested absorption, having regard to the treatment of the Work Inspector post as a vanishing category.

Article 226 permits the High Court to issue writs, including mandamus, but relief may be declined where a claimant has delayed approaching the Court and the delay would make the requested relief inappropriate.

The Court considered G.O.(Ms). No. 54, Municipal Administration and Water Supply (TP.1) Department, dated 23.05.2017, issued following the direction in W.P. No. 5203 of 2016, as well as the ruling in W.P. No. 27825 of 2011 and connected cases (10.04.2018), whose view that the 2001 cut-off could not be treated as conclusive after post-2001 employees had been absorbed was upheld by the Division Bench in W.A. Nos. 2682 of 2018 and 2013 of 2019 (03.03.2023).

The Court nevertheless treated the earlier writ ruling as a judgment in personam and considered delay, laches, and the post’s vanishing-category status in deciding whether to grant relief.

The Court noted that the petitioners could be regarded as omitted persons and that the 2001 cut-off was not necessarily decisive, given the prior absorption of some post-2001 employees.

But the earlier proceedings had been brought in 2011, whereas these petitioners made their representations only in 2021 and 2022 and filed their writ petitions in 2024. The Court therefore treated them as fence-sitters and held that granting absorption at that stage, when the Work Inspector post had already been treated as a vanishing category, would affect the respondents’ policy decision.

It dismissed all three writ petitions, closed the connected miscellaneous petitions, and made no order as to costs.