Identically situated employees must receive benefits, including regularization, extended under an upheld precedent.

The State of Gujarat preferred a Letters Patent Appeal against the learned Single Judge’s order dated 23 March 2026, whereby the original petitioner was directed to receive the same benefits as the petitioners in Special Civil Application No. 6026 of 2015.

The State did not dispute before the learned Single Judge that the petitioner was identically situated to the petitioners in that earlier matter.

In SCA No. 6026 of 2015, the State had been directed to extend the benefits available under the applicable Government Resolutions.

That decision was affirmed in Letters Patent Appeal No. 2 of 2016 and was not interfered with by the Supreme Court, although the question of law was left open.

In the meantime, the employees covered by SCA No. 6026 of 2015 were regularized by the State on 23 August 2023.

The State challenged the impugned order on the ground that the relief sought in the present case involved regularization, whereas the earlier judgment referred to benefits under Government Resolutions.

1. Whether the learned Single Judge erred in directing the State to grant the petitioner the same benefits as those granted to the identically situated petitioners in SCA No. 6026 of 2015 merely because the relief in the two proceedings was differently worded.

2. Whether the State could deny the petitioner the benefit of regularization when the similarly situated employees in SCA No. 6026 of 2015 had been regularized pursuant to judgments affirmed by the Division Bench and not interfered with by the Supreme Court.

The Court applied the principle that similarly situated persons must receive similar treatment and that a binding judicial precedent must be followed in the absence of any distinguishing factual or legal circumstance.

It relied on the judgment in SCA No. 6026 of 2015 dated 15 June 2015, as affirmed in LPA No. 2 of 2016 dated 23 January 2023, and noted that the Supreme Court declined to interfere on 15 March 2024, while leaving the question of law open.

The operative effect of a precedent is determined by the substantive benefit granted and implemented, rather than merely by the form or wording of the prayer.

Consequently, where the State has regularized identically situated employees pursuant to the earlier decisions, parity requires consideration of the same benefit for the present petitioner.

The Division Bench found that the State had failed to identify any distinction between the present petitioner and the petitioners in SCA No. 6026 of 2015.

Although the earlier Single Judge’s order referred to entitlement under the relevant Government Resolutions rather than expressly directing regularization, the State had, in implementation of the affirmed judgments, regularized the employees covered by that decision.

The impugned order therefore effectively applied an existing and binding precedent to an undisputedly similarly situated petitioner.

The difference in the wording of the prayers did not justify denying the substantive benefit already extended to the comparator employees.

Since the petitioner was identically situated to the employees covered by SCA No. 6026 of 2015, the State was required to consider and extend the corresponding benefit, including regularization as implemented in that precedent.

The Letters Patent Appeal was accordingly rejected as meritless.