State obligated to consider regularization of daily wage employees with long-term service following constitutional guidelines.

The Petitioner was appointed as a contingency employee (Peon/Waterman) in the Department of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe Development on February 15, 2008

He has been working as a daily wage employee against a sanctioned post for over 18 years without being regularized

The Petitioner filed this writ petition seeking a writ of Mandamus to compel the respondent authorities to dispose of his representation dated March 6, 2024, regarding the regularization of his services and the extension of appropriate pay scales and consequential benefits

During the proceedings, the Petitioner limited his prayer to seeking a direction for the competent authority to decide upon a fresh representation

1. Whether the Petitioner is entitled to a time-bound consideration of his representation for regularization of service after completing 18 years of daily wage employment.

2. Whether the state’s continued engagement of the Petitioner on a temporary basis for nearly two decades aligns with constitutional mandates under Articles 14, 16, and 21.

The Court applied the principles of regularization established in Narendra Kumar Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand, which addressed the rights of employees completing 10 years of service

It relied on Jaggo v. Union of India, emphasizing that government departments must lead by example in providing stable employment

Furthermore, the Court cited Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand (2026), which held that continuing services on sanctioned posts under contractual nomenclature for over a decade is unjustified

Most significantly, the Court applied Dharam Singh v. State of UP (2025), which deprecated "ad-hocism," labeled the State a "constitutional employer," and held that perennial work must be reflected in sanctioned strength rather than precarious engagement

The Court observed that the Petitioner has been performing the roles of Driver and Peon for approximately 18 years, a duration suggesting the perennial nature of the work

By invoking recent Supreme Court jurisprudence, the Court reasoned that "ad-hocism" and the informalization of recruitment are methods used to evade regular employment obligations, which "corrodes confidence in public administration"

The Court highlighed that under Articles 14, 16, and 21, the State cannot balance budgets at the expense of those performing basic public functions for extended periods

Consequently, the Court determined that the Petitioner’s long-standing grievance regarding regularization required an expedited administrative decision in light of the state's own circular dated March 5, 2008, and the aforementioned judicial precedents

The Court directed the concerned authorities to consider and decide upon the representation, specifically accounting for the Petitioner’s 18 years of service and the Supreme Court’s directives on regularization, within a period of four months from the date of receipt