‘Welfare state can’t be apathetic’: Orissa HC on employee’s regularisation

The court said when public sector entities engage in the misuse of contracts, it mirrors the detrimental trends of the gig economy

Court Ruling on Employment Rights

The court dismissed technical objections and described the state’s arguments as “unfair, illogical, and arbitrary”. (Shutterstock)

The Orissa high court has set aside a government order rejecting a contractual college employee’s regularisation, saying a welfare state grounded in constitutional values cannot adopt an “apathetic and callous” stand to deny the basic rights of temporary employees who have served for years.

Santosh Kumar Patra, who joined Cuttack’s Shailabala Women’s Autonomous College as a laboratory attendant in 2000, moved the court after he remained a contractual employee on daily wages despite his long service. In August 2019, the Odisha higher education department rejected Patra’s representation for regularisation, arguing that his initial engagement in 2000 was “irregular” because it was not made against a sanctioned contractual post with the concurrence of the finance department.

The court said no semblance of rights is available to the petitioner despite continued employment. “The rise of the gig economy has led to an increase in precarious employment arrangements, often characterised by a lack of benefits, job security, and fair treatment,” said Justice Murahari Sri Raman in his judgement delivered on Monday.

The government argued Patra’s recruitment did not follow the local employment exchange procedures and bypassed the reservation policies mandated under the Orissa Reservation of Vacancies Act, 1975.

The court dismissed technical objections and described the state’s arguments as “unfair, illogical, and arbitrary”. Justice Raman observed that the college and state authorities had voluntarily “extracted” Patra’s labour for over the years without any complaint regarding his performance or conduct.

He cited the case of Anama Charan Nayak, a night watchman at the same college paid from the same self-financing fund, whose services were regularised in 2016 under judicial directions. The court said that denying Patra similar treatment constituted unconstitutional discrimination, violating the principles of equality enshrined in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.

“The state cannot escape its constitutional duties by citing procedural omissions that occurred at the time of initial engagement decades ago. The employer is responsible for complying with recruitment and reservation policies at the time of hiring, and it cannot use its own past administrative failures as a shield to deny an employee’s livelihood in the twilight of their career,” the court said.

It clarified that subsequent statutory service rules and reservation guidelines introduced in 2012 and 2013 cannot be applied retroactively to defeat the rights of an employee, who was engaged in 2000 and has worked since.

The court quashed the 2019 rejection order and remitted the matter to the higher education secretary for reconsidering Patra’s case for regularisation within three months.