Long-serving casual workers’ regularisation claims must be considered under the applicable scheme and governing precedent.

The nine applicants had been engaged as casual/daily-wage employees with All India Radio, Agartala, since approximately 1994 and claimed continuous service for more than three decades against sanctioned/vacant posts.

Prasar Bharati formulated a Scheme dated 22 August 2019, circulated on 5 September 2019, for regularisation of irregular appointments/engagements in compliance with the principles laid down in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi.

The applicants submitted applications through the IARS online portal and their names appeared in a list of 379 candidates stated to be eligible for regularisation.

The applicants were informed of the rejection of their claims by email dated 16 July 2024.

Whether the applicants’ claims for regularisation were required to be considered under the Prasar Bharati Scheme dated 22 August 2019 and the principles governing regularisation laid down in Uma Devi.

Whether the applicants’ prolonged service as casual/daily-wage workers against sanctioned/vacant posts warranted reconsideration of their claims in light of subsequent judicial decisions, including Jaggo v. Union of India.

Whether the Tribunal should direct the respondents to decide the applicants’ claims for regularisation afresh rather than grant immediate regularisation.

The Tribunal applied the principles governing regularisation of irregular appointments under Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi, particularly the requirement that regularisation must be considered within a valid scheme and in respect of employees who had completed ten years of continuous service against duly sanctioned posts without the protection of court orders.

It also relied on the Prasar Bharati regularisation Scheme dated 22 August 2019 and the associated circulars dated 5 September 2019, 16 December 2020 and 8 March 2021, which prescribed the eligibility criteria and procedure for scrutiny of applications.

The Tribunal further referred to later decisions, especially Jaggo v. Union of India, for the principle that long-serving temporary or part-time workers continuously performing essential and perennial functions may warrant consideration for regularisation.

The Tribunal noted that the applicants had served the respondents continuously since 1994 for approximately thirty years and that their services had allegedly been utilised against sanctioned/vacant posts.

Although the respondents stated that the applications had been scrutinised and found ineligible under the Prasar Bharati Scheme, the Tribunal considered the applicants’ long and uninterrupted service, together with the principles emerging from Uma Devi and Jaggo, sufficient to require a fresh consideration of their claims.

The Tribunal did not itself determine that the applicants fulfilled every eligibility condition or order their immediate regularisation. Instead, it directed the competent authorities to evaluate their cases in accordance with the Scheme and the applicable judicial principles.

The respondents were directed to consider the applicants’ cases for regularisation in accordance with the Prasar Bharati Scheme and the principles laid down in Uma Devi, Jaggo and other relevant judgments, within three months from receipt of the Tribunal’s order.

The Tribunal granted reconsideration rather than direct regularisation.

Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, were disposed of, with no order as to costs.