CAT orders regularisation of 3 railway mail staffers

The applicants had challenged orders issued by the postal authorities in May 2025 rejecting their claims for regularisation.

The Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), Chandigarh bench, has directed the department of posts to regularise the services of three long-serving part-time workers employed in the Railway Mail Service (RMS) offices in Haryana.

The tribunal rejected the Department of Posts’ claims and directed that the applicants’ services be regularised from the due date, with all consequential benefits, within two months of receiving the order.

The order passed by a bench comprising Rashmi Saxena Sahni and Suresh Kumar Batra on the applications filed by Vijay, a part-time safai karamchari posted in Rohtak, and Parkash Singh and Krishan Kumar, both part-time watermen posted in Faridabad and Hisar, respectively, the tribunal observed that denying them regularisation after decades of service was “exploitative in nature” and violative of constitutional principles.

The applicants had challenged orders issued by the postal authorities in May 2025 rejecting their claims for regularisation. The employees argued that despite rendering continuous service for more than two decades, their services had not been regularised. According to the plea, Vijay had been working since January 1999, while the other applicants have also served for long periods in part-time roles.

The department of posts opposed the plea, arguing that the workers were not appointed against sanctioned posts and therefore did not meet the conditions laid down by the Supreme Court in the landmark secretary, State of Karnataka vs. Uma Devi judgment case governing regularisation of casual employees.

The tribunal rejected the Department of Posts’ claims and directed that the applicants’ services be regularised from the due date, with all consequential benefits, within two months of receiving the order.