Parity requires extending retrospective regularization and consequential benefits to similarly situated employees.

The petitioner was appointed on a contractual basis as an Assistant Homeopathy Medical Officer on 14 January 1999 pursuant to a recruitment drive initiated in 1999.

He was subsequently regularized by order dated 28 February 2009, but without granting regularization from the date of his initial appointment.

The petitioner sought modification of the regularization order and consequential benefits from 14 January 1999; the reference to 14 January 2009 in the relief clause was treated as an apparent error.

He relied on orders in favour of similarly situated employees, including the decisions in W.A. Nos. 24/2017 and 25/2017, and subsequent writ petitions granting retrospective regularization.

The State opposed the petition, contending that the petitioner had accepted regularization in 2009 and could not subsequently claim retrospective regularization.

Whether the petitioner, having been regularized in 2009, was entitled to consideration of regularization from the date of his initial contractual appointment, namely 14 January 1999, on the ground of parity with similarly situated employees.

Whether the petitioner was entitled to consequential benefits arising from retrospective regularization.

The Court exercised its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

It applied the principle of parity and consistency, holding that a similarly situated employee should ordinarily receive the same benefit where coordinate Benches have already granted retrospective regularization in materially identical circumstances.

The Court also considered the binding effect of the earlier Division Bench decision in W.A. Nos. 24/2017 and 25/2017, against which the State’s Special Leave Petition had been dismissed, as well as subsequent orders granting the same relief to similarly situated employees.

The Court found that the petitioner’s case was squarely covered by the earlier decisions granting retrospective regularization to similarly situated Assistant Homeopathy Medical Officers.

The State was unable to produce any material showing that the orders relied upon by the petitioner had been stayed, reversed, or interfered with by a higher forum.

In these circumstances, the Court held that there was no justification for taking a different view and applied the principle of parity.

The State’s objection based on the petitioner’s acceptance of the 2009 regularization order was not accepted as a bar to relief.

The respondents were directed to take a final decision regarding regularization of the petitioner’s services from 14 January 1999, the date of his initial appointment, together with consequential benefits in the same manner as extended to similarly situated employees who had received retrospective regularization.

The decision was to be taken within 30 days.

The petition was accordingly allowed and disposed of, and pending applications, if any, were closed.