Mandamus to consider regularization of long-term daily wagers in light of Supreme Court precedents on constitutional employment.

The Petitioners, Onkar Prasad Sahu and Dheeraj Kumar Karociya, have been working in the respondent department as a Driver and a Peon, respectively, on a daily-wage basis for over 11 years against sanctioned posts

Despite their long service, their employment has not been regularized. The petitioners filed this writ petition seeking a writ of mandamus to direct the respondents to consider their cases for regularization based on various judicial precedents

During the hearing, the petitioners limited their prayer to seeking permission to submit a formal representation to the competent authorities for a time-bound decision

1. Whether the petitioners, having completed 11 years of continuous service as daily wagers against sanctioned posts, are entitled to a time-bound consideration for regularization by the State authorities

The court relied on the landmark principles of regularization established in Umadevi’s case and Narendra Kumar Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand, which addressed the rights of temporary employees who have completed 10 years of service

It invoked Jaggo v. Union of India, emphasizing that government departments must provide stable employment rather than perpetual temporary roles

The court further applied the doctrine against "ad-hocism" and "precarious engagement" from Dharam Singh v. State of UP, which held that the State, as a constitutional employer, must organize perennial work on a sanctioned footing and cannot evade regular employment obligations through informal recruitment

Additionally, the court cited Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand, noting that denying regularization after a decade of service under contractual nomenclature is unjustified

The court noted that the petitioners have provided over 11 years of continuous service, performing roles (Driver and Peon) that are integral to the department's functioning

By referencing Dharam Singh, the court reasoned that the long-term extraction of regular labor under temporary labels offends the constitutional promise of equal protection and that "financial stringency" is not a valid excuse to override fairness

The court underscored that justice in cases of long-term daily wage labor requires "fixed timelines and verifiable compliance" to prevent administrative drift

Since the petitioners seek only a consideration of their claim rather than an immediate merit-based adjudication by the court, the court found it appropriate to direct the executive to exercise its discretion in light of the State’s own 2008 regularization circular and the heighted standards for "constitutional employers" set by the Supreme Court

The court directed the concerned authorities to take a decision on said representation within four months of receipt, explicitly ordering them to keep in mind the petitioners' 11-year service period and the legal principles regarding regularization established by the Supreme Court