E-Paper
HC upholds decision on regularisation of 35 employees of info, technology society
The order had come on the 2015 plea of these employees, seeking directions to the government to regularise their services with effect from 2011, when their counterparts were regularised in Punjab Information and Communication Technology Education Society (PICTES).
The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed the Punjab government’s appeal, upholding the 2018 order passed by a single judge on the regularisation of 35 Class III employees.
The order had come on the 2015 plea of these employees, seeking directions to the government to regularise their services with effect from 2011, when their counterparts were regularised in Punjab Information and Communication Technology Education Society (PICTES).
The single judge bench, in its order, had said that the society being state controlled cannot be allowed to make a class within a class.
“Equals should be treated equally. The petitioners have been working with the computer teachers since the inception of the society and the claim of the petitioner cannot be ignored, when the claim of the computer teachers has been accepted by the government,” the single judge bench had recorded.
The division bench order was passed by Justice GS Sandhawalia and Justice Vikas Suri, observing that the decision of the state government as such was “apparently arbitrary and discriminatory on the face of it and not sustainable, in view of Article 14 of the Constitution of India (right to equality)”.
The government had argued that the finance department had denied the claim on account of paucity of funds, many of whom were appointed in 2005. But with effect from 2011, the government regularised services of 6,500 contractual teaching staff.
The division bench observed that the denial could not have been to one set of persons in the same department.
In the proposal for regularisation of services of the society, it had been noticed that only 66 non-teaching administrative employees would be involved, whereas in the case of teaching staff, the number was shown to be 6,452 computer teachers. “...the fall back on Clause 5 as such is totally on untenable grounds in comparison to the ratio as such of the teaching staff, who had been regularised whereas the non-teaching staff have been given a short shrift”, the bench said. The said clause states that board of directors/competent authority will recommend to regularise the services of contractual employees, keeping in view of their financial conditions, which meant that those departments will recommend regularize services of these employees, who are in a position to bear the financial burden after regularization of services of their employees.
The court dismissed the state’s plea, adding that the findings recorded by the single judge on the issue of parity are not liable to be interfered in any manner.
