Mandi Board Must Extend Retrospective Pay Benefits Won By One Employee To Similarly Placed Colleagues: MP HC Upholds Order

The employees had initially worked as daily-wage staff and were later regularised under the State Government’s 16 May 2007 guidelines. Their regularisation orders operated prospectively and excluded their earlier service from pension and other benefits.

They sought parity with Rajendra Prasad Shrivastava, who received retrospective service benefits following a Labour Court award that had attained finality. The Single Judge allowed the employees’ petitions and directed that the award’s benefits be extended to them.

The Board appealed, relying, among other things, on differences between the employees’ cases, the individual nature of Shrivastava’s award, and delay and acquiescence.

The connected appeals also included challenges concerning regularisation and promotion; the judgment separately records those claims and the parties’ submissions.

Under Article 14, similarly situated employees should ordinarily receive equal treatment; a public employer should not deny a benefit solely because an employee did not earlier approach a court [State of Karnataka v. C. Lalitha, (2006) 2 SCC 747, para. 27; State of U.P. v. Arvind Kumar Srivastava, (2015) 1 SCC 347, para. 28].

The rule is subject to recognised exceptions, including delay, laches, and acquiescence; those who sleep on their rights and approach the court only after others succeed may be treated as fence-sitters. An exception may apply where the earlier judgment is intended to operate in rem and benefit all similarly situated persons [Arvind Kumar Srivastava, para. 28].

The Court also referred to Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi, (2006) 4 SCC 1, on regularisation of irregular, but not illegal, appointments, and to Jaggo v. Union of India, (2026) 4 SCC 1, on exploitative use of temporary employment.

The appeals were brought under Section 2(1) of the Madhya Pradesh Uchcha Nyayalaya (Khandpeeth Ko Appeal) Adhiniyam, 2005.

The Court treated the employees’ cases as similar to Shrivastava’s and concluded that denying them the benefit merely because they had not themselves pursued Labour Court proceedings would impose unnecessary and repetitive litigation on employees and courts.

It applied the general rule of equal treatment from C. Lalitha and Arvind Kumar Srivastava, emphasising the State’s obligation as a model employer to extend benefits to similarly situated employees.

Although Arvind Kumar Srivastava recognises delay and acquiescence as exceptions, the Court did not find those grounds sufficient to disturb the Single Judge’s orders in the appeals it dismissed.

The judgment does not separately analyse the merits of the recorded promotion claims or the employee’s appeal against rejection of regularisation.

The judgment’s final paragraph does not expressly state the disposition of W.A. No. 2163/2024, which was filed by an employee challenging rejection of his regularisation claim.