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Mann cites legal hurdles, seeks time to regularise contractual employees
Mann said his government’s intention was to regularise their services, but there were some legal issues due to the law enacted and a bill passed by previous governments in 2016 and 2021
Chandigarh : Chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday appealed to contractual employees to allow more time to the state government to regularise their services, citing legal hurdles.
Mann said his government’s intention was to regularise their services, but there were some legal issues due to the law enacted and a bill passed by previous governments in 2016 and 2021. “We want to repeal these. In 2021, the then (Charanjit Singh) Channi government passed a bill to repeal the 2016 Act, and it is still pending with the governor. Also, it does not cover all the employees whose services we want to regularise,” he said in response to a query from reporters in this regard.
The AAP government has promised to regularise the services of 35,000 contractual employees and set up a committee of three ministers – finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema, sports minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer and school education minister Harjot Singh Bains – to remove all legal hurdles for passing a new bill for the same.
Mann, who held a meeting with the committee members earlier in the day, appealed to employees not to show haste and as the state government was getting the matter examined by legal experts (to find a solution) and would also talk to the governor. “We can give appointment letters to them right away, but they (employees) will have do rounds of high court. The intention is to regularize services, but being a legal issue, it may take some time. If it takes four-five months and some of them become overage, we will give them relaxation in age,” the chief minister said. He said the legal position would be explained to employees.
