Part-time water carriers are entitled to whole-time contingent status after ten years, with consequential benefits.

The petitioners were appointed as part-time water carriers in 1998.

Their services were converted to daily-wage/Whole Time Contingent Worker status with effect from 4 October 2012, and they were subsequently regularized in 2016.

They sought retrospective conferment of whole-time worker status from the date on which their juniors were granted such status, or alternatively, upon completion of ten years’ service, with regularization after eight years of daily-wage service and consequential benefits.

Relying on the Division Bench judgment in Leela Devi v. State of H.P. & Ors., the petitioners contended that whole-time status ought to have been granted after ten years of part-time service, i.e., in 2008.

The respondents did not establish that the petitioners’ service from 1998 was interrupted or that they had worked continuously only from 2002.

Whether the petitioners were entitled to conversion from part-time water carriers to Whole Time Contingent Employees on daily-wage basis upon completion of ten years’ service, notwithstanding that such status was conferred only from 4 October 2012?

Whether the petitioners’ regularization in 2016 was liable to be antedated or otherwise interfered with on the basis of the period for which whole-time status ought to have been granted?

The Court applied the guidelines laid down by the Division Bench in Leela Devi v. State of H.P. & Ors., CWP No. 3310 of 2011, decided on 12 December 2011.

Under those guidelines, a part-time water carrier completing ten years of service was to be converted into a Whole Time Contingent Employee on daily-wage basis; thereafter, an employee completing 240 days’ service in a year for at least eight years as a daily wager was eligible for appointment on a regular basis as a Class IV employee.

The Court further applied the principle that, in the absence of any established break in service, the qualifying period was to be calculated from the original appointment date.

Since the petitioners were appointed in 1998 and the respondents failed to show any interruption in their service, the ten-year period prescribed in Leela Devi expired in 2008.

The respondents’ decision to confer daily-wage/whole-time status only from 4 October 2012 was therefore contrary to the applicable guidelines and legally unsustainable.

The Court treated the petitioners as entitled to whole-time status immediately upon completion of ten years’ part-time service.

However, because their regularization in 2016 occurred eight years after the due date for conferment of whole-time status, the Court found no reason to disturb the regularization itself.

The respondents were directed to confer Whole Time Contingent Employee status on the petitioners from the date immediately following completion of ten years’ part-time service, effectively from 2008, with all consequential benefits.

The petitioners’ regularization in 2016 was not interfered with.

Arrears and other consequential monetary benefits were directed to be released within three months; failing payment within that period, the amount would carry interest at 6% per annum from the date of judgment until actual payment.