Two UP Forest Daily Wagers Doing Regular Staff’s Work Keep Interim Minimum Pay Without Allowances Or Increments, As Allahabad HC Calls 2024 Guidelines Illegal

Ramesh claimed that he had worked as a Chowkidar/Watcher in the Forest Department since July 2009 but was paid ₹6,162 per month, below the minimum pay applicable to a regular Class IV employee.

He sought payment of the minimum pay scale, relying on Supreme Court decisions including State of U.P. v. Putti Lal, State of Punjab v. Jagjit Singh and Sabha Shankar Dube v. Divisional Forest Officer.

The Single Judge directed payment of the minimum pay admissible to a regular Class IV employee, without allowances or increments, while the writ petition remained pending.

The State appealed, relying, among other things, on its 24 September 2024 administrative guidelines, the respondent’s allegedly seasonal engagement, and the contention that final relief had been granted at the interim stage without a hearing.

The Division Bench heard the appeal together with the State’s appeal concerning Umesh.

Under State of U.P. v. Putti Lal, daily-wage workers performing duties similar to regular government employees are entitled to the minimum of the applicable pay scale, but not increments or other allowances while they remain daily-wage workers.

Jagjit Singh and Sabha Shankar Dube apply the “equal pay for equal work” principle to temporary employees and reject distinctions based merely on temporary status or length of service where employees perform the same duties.

The Allahabad High Court’s decisions in Hari Shankar and Chanchal Kumar Tiwari, affirmed by the Supreme Court in Deputy Director, Social Forestry Division v. Lakshmi Chandra, confirm that this entitlement is not confined to workers eligible for regularisation.

A temporary scheme or seasonal appointment does not, by itself, defeat equal-pay entitlement where the relevant work and duties are comparable.

Although interim relief ordinarily should not amount to final relief, Deoraj v. State of Maharashtra permits such relief in exceptional cases where the applicant has a particularly strong prima facie case and withholding relief would cause serious injustice.

The Court considered the governing Supreme Court decisions to have settled the entitlement of daily-wage workers performing comparable duties to the minimum of the regular pay scale.

It held that the State’s 24 September 2024 guidelines were administrative instructions and could not justify withholding that entitlement where they conflicted with Putti Lal.

The State’s own affidavit showed substantial work by Ramesh in successive years, including eleven months in 2020, eleven months in 2022, twelve months in 2024 and eleven months in 2025; the Court therefore rejected the assertion that his engagement was merely intermittent or seasonal.

The Court also found that the State had been given an opportunity to place instructions and file a counter-affidavit, but had not done so despite additional time.

Given the settled law and the hardship that withholding the payment would cause, the Court treated the case as exceptional and upheld interim relief in accordance with Deoraj.

It imposed costs of ₹1,00,000 on the appellants: ₹50,000 payable to Ramesh and ₹50,000 to Umesh, within one month of the judgment.