In a firm reminder that equality is not ornamental but operational, the Supreme Court has ruled that casual workers cannot be denied regularisation when others in identical positions have already been absorbed into permanent service.
A Bench of Justices J.K. Maheshwari and Atul S. Chandurkar stepped in to correct what it described as unequal treatment, directing that four long-serving employees — engaged decades ago as sweepers and a cook — be regularised with effect from July 1, 2006.
The workers had been appointed between 1993 and 1998 in the Income Tax Department’s Gwalior office after being sponsored by the Employment Exchange and interviewed. They continued on daily wages for years, performing duties that were neither temporary nor seasonal but part of the department’s regular functioning.
Yet when outsourcing of services began around 2011–2012, their pleas for regularisation were turned away. Both the tribunal and the High Court declined relief, leaning heavily on the precedent of Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi. The reasoning: the workers had not completed ten years of continuous service as of April 10, 2006 — a date central to that ruling.
The Supreme Court, however, found that approach too rigid — and inconsistent.
Justice Chandurkar, authoring the judgment, pointed out that other similarly placed daily-wage employees in the same department had already secured regularisation through earlier Supreme Court rulings, including Ravi Verma v. Union of India and Raman Kumar v. Union of India. Denying the present appellants the same treatment, the Bench held, amounted to discrimination.
The principle was straightforward: once the Court has regularised one group of employees in a particular factual matrix, the State cannot selectively refuse others standing on the same footing.
The department’s reliance on Umadevi did not persuade the Bench. Referring to Jaggo v. Union of India, the Court reiterated that Umadevi was never meant to permanently close the door on workers whose appointments were irregular in procedure but not illegal in substance.
There was no “backdoor entry” here, the Court noted. The appointments were routed through Employment Exchange sponsorship and followed by interviews. Any procedural lapse at inception, the Bench observed, cannot erase years of continuous service in roles that were essential and ongoing.
The verdict directs the department to regularise the services of the four employees from July 1, 2006, on the same terms granted in the earlier cases, and to release all consequential benefits within three months.
With this ruling, the Court has underscored a simple but powerful idea: equality before law cannot be selective. If one door opens for some, it cannot remain shut for others who stand in the same queue.
