Part-Time Sweeper’s 1995 Regularisation Claim Fails After He Failed 1996 Interview, J&K High Court Holds

The petitioner was engaged as a part-time sweeper on 17 April 1989.

His colleague, Mohammad Jamal Dar, was regularized in 1992, but the petitioner was not.

The petitioner later filed SWP No. 891/2004 and SWP No. 1169/2005, challenging the respondents’ failure to appoint him as a full-time sweeper.

He was appointed as a full-time sweeper in 2013 and his service was confirmed prospectively from 25 September 2013.

In the present petition, he sought retrospective regularization from 1995, relying on parity with Dar.

The respondents maintained that the petitioner had failed to qualify in an interview in 1996 and that no vacancy was available in 2005.

The Court also noted that the petitioner had not disclosed his earlier challenge to the 9 June 2005 order in SWP No. 1169/2005.

The judgment cites no statute or precedent. It applies the principles that a litigant must disclose material facts, that the same relief should not be pursued through multiple proceedings, and that parity cannot be claimed where the comparator’s material circumstances differ—in this case, where the comparator qualified in the selection process and the petitioner did not.

The Court found that the petitioner had omitted to disclose SWP No. 1169/2005, in which he had challenged the 9 June 2005 order concerning the absence of a vacancy and sought appointment as a full-time sweeper.

It also noted that his services had already been regularized from September 2013 and that the earlier petition had been disposed of with a direction to reconsider his claim.

On the merits, the Court accepted the respondents’ position that the petitioner had failed to qualify in the 1996 interview, whereas Dar had qualified. The petitioner therefore could not establish entitlement to the same treatment.

The petition was dismissed, and any interim direction ceased to operate.