PANAJI
In a major setback to the Goa government, the Supreme Court has directed the State to regularise the services of employees of the Public Works Department (PWD) Labour Supply Society, holding that it cannot deny them permanent employment after benefiting from their services for decades on the basis of a "self-created" procedural defect.
Allowing the appeal filed by Rupesh Gaonkar and other similarly placed workers, the Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh set aside the July 28, 2023 judgement of the High Court of Bombay at Goa, which had refused to enforce a 2014 government order granting the workers temporary status and recognising their entitlement to absorption in the PWD. The apex court, in its 32-page order, directed the Goa government to frame an appropriate scheme within four months to regularise the workers, while making it clear that the benefit would be confined only to members of the society at the time the writ petition was filed on February 9, 2021. Rejecting the State's stand that the 2014 order lacked the necessary approvals and concurrence under the Rules of Business, the court said the government could not rely on its own procedural lapse after consistently acting upon the decision for years.
"This is a welfare State... which has, for decades... taken the benefit of the labour, skill, and continuous attendance of the appellants, cannot in fairness and good conscience now cast them aside on the strength of an internal file infirmity of its own creation," the Bench observed. "It would be a travesty of justice, and inconsistent with the very idea of the State as a model employer, to permit the State to approbate the benefit of long, uninterrupted service and simultaneously reprobate the commitment that induced and sustained that very service."
The order also noted that the PWD Labour Supply Society was not an ordinary contractor arrangement but a body created by the State itself and headed by the Principal Chief Engineer of the PWD with the express objective of preventing exploitation of contract labour and facilitating eventual regularisation.
"It is a body constituted by the State itself... for the specific and declared purpose of ending the exploitation of contract workers and ensuring that their services would, in due course, be regularised," the Bench said.
The court also rejected the State's argument that regularising the workers would open the floodgates to similar claims, stating that relief was being granted only to the identified appellants before the court.
Under its directions, the State has been asked to regularise the workers in the categories assigned to them during the 2013 categorisation exercise. "If sufficient sanctioned vacancies are unavailable, the government must create supernumerary posts on a one-to-one basis to absorb them. These posts will remain personal to the concerned workers and will stand abolished once they retire, resign or otherwise leave service."
The Bench further held that the workers would be deemed regularised with effect from February 9, 2021, the date on which they instituted the writ petition in their individual capacity, making them eligible for consequential benefits, including seniority and pensionary benefits. However, it clarified that they would not be entitled to arrears of pay and allowances for the period prior to the date of the judgement.
