State as constitutional employer must regularize daily-wage employees completing ten years of continuous service.

The petitioner has been working as a daily-wage Dialysis Technician at Late Shri Lakhiram Agrawal Memorial Hospital, Raigarh, since 2014

Having completed more than 10 years of continuous service, the petitioner submitted representations on 02.04.2025 and 21.08.2025 seeking regularization of his services

Due to the respondents' failure to consider these representations, the petitioner approached the High Court seeking a direction for the authorities to decide on his grievance in light of various Supreme Court mandates regarding the regularization of long-term temporary employees

1. Whether the respondent authorities are required to consider the petitioner’s claim for regularization after 10 years of continuous daily-wage service in light of established judicial precedents

The court relied on the principles of fair employment and the mandate against "ad-hocism" as established by the Supreme Court of India.

Narendra Kumar Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand (2018) regarding the regularization of employees with 10 years of service

Jaggo v. Union of India (2024), which emphasized the State’s duty as a model employer

Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand (2026), which criticized the denial of regularization for long-term contractual workers on sanctioned posts

Dharam Singh v. State of UP (2025), which held that the State is a "constitutional employer" under Articles 14, 16, and 21, and must not balance budgets by exploiting temporary labor for perennial work

The court observed that the petitioner has completed over a decade of continuous service as a daily wager

The court noted that the Supreme Court has consistently deprecated the practice of "ad-hocism" and the use of temporary labels to extract regular labor, describing such practices as a "conscious method of denial" of dignity and livelihoods

It reasoned that because the petitioner's role appeared integral and long-standing, the respondents were under a constitutional obligation to evaluate his status transparently rather than through administrative drift

However, rather than granting an absolute order for regularization, the court determined that the appropriate remedy was to compel the respondents to exercise their administrative discretion in accordance with the legal standards and timelines set by the Apex Court

The court directed the respondents to consider and decide upon said representation in accordance with the law, specifically factoring in the petitioner’s 10-year service and the cited Supreme Court precedents

The final order mandates a decision within a period of four months from the date the representation is received