Entitlement to Regularization From Date of Completing 720 Days Service Within Three Years.

The petitioner joined the Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan (Respondent Corporation) as a daily wader in 1997.

By December 31, 2001, he had completed 720 days of service within a three-year period.

Under a prior Industrial Tribunal award in Reference (I.T.) No. 446 of 1981 dated December 19, 1983, workmen who completed 720 days of service within three years were entitled to regularization.

While the petitioner met these criteria by January 1, 2002, the Corporation only regularized his services starting June 28, 2004.

The petitioner sought a writ of mandamus to shift the regularization date back to the date of completion of 720 days and to grant consequential benefits.

Whether the petitioner is entitled to have his services regularized from the date he completed 720 days of employment in three years (01.01.2002) instead of the date assigned by the Corporation (28.06.2004).

Whether the Corporation’s delay in applying the benefits of the 1983 Industrial Tribunal award constitutes an arbitrary action subject to judicial interference.

The court applied the binding directions of the Industrial Tribunal in Reference (I.T.) No. 446 of 1981, which mandated regularization upon completion of 720 work days over three continuous years.

It relied heavily on the principle of parity and stare decisis regarding its own previous judgments on identical facts, specifically Municipal Commissioner, Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan v. Prashantbhai Bapurao Godase (SCA No. 10008/2013), Shambhubhai Vittalbhai Parmar v. Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan (SCA No. 8287/2016), and Upendra Kalpnath Pandey v. Vadodara Mahanagar Seva Sadan (SCA No. 217/2020).

The Court noted that the material facts—regarding the length of service and the completion of 720 days by December 31, 2001—were undisputed by the respondent.

Following the reasoning in the Prashantbhai Bapurao Godase case, the Court observed that the Corporation had previously attempted to grant benefits only from the date of the office order (2004 or 2006) rather than the date of eligibility.

The Court held that once a workman fulfills the criteria established by the 1983 award, the benefit must accrue from that date of completion.

To deny this would give a "premium to the employer for his arbitrariness and illegality".

Since the respondent could not distinguish the petitioner’s case from the cited precedents, the Court determined that the petitioner was entitled to the same relief.

It held that the petitioner is entitled to regularization with effect from January 1, 2002 (the date following the completion of 720 days in three years) rather than June 28, 2004.

The Corporation was directed to grant the petitioner all consequential monetary and service benefits arising from this retrospective regularization.

No order as to costs was made.