Supreme Court rules against daily rated employee claiming regularization in absence of appointment by a competent authority

Supreme Court rules against daily rated employee claiming regularization in absence of appointment by a competent authority

Cites its decision in an earlier case wherein two pre-conditions were required to be fulfilled

The Supreme Court has held that a daily rated employee cannot claim regularization of employment when his initial appointment was not done by a competent authority and there existed no sanctioned post on which the employee was working.

In the Vibhuti Shankar Pandey v. State of Madhya Pradesh and Others case, a bench of Justice S Ravindra Bhat and Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia was hearing an appeal against the division bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court that refused to grant the benefit of regularization to the appellant-employee.

In 1980, the appellant was engaged as a supervisor on a daily rated basis under a project of the State Water Resources Department. He sought regularization to the post of a supervisor/timekeeper. However, the minimum qualification for the post then was matriculation in mathematics and the appellant did not qualify for that.

Later, when the government relaxed the requirement of qualification, the appellant again sought regularization. He was now qualified for the post and had been working for a long time as a daily wager.

Still, his claim was rejected. The reason was that though the minimum qualification of matriculation with mathematics did not come in the way of his regularization, the fact remained that he was never appointed against any post.

The concerned authority also highlighted that the appointment of the appellant was never made by a competent authority. Also, there were no posts available when he sought regularization.

On the other hand, the appellant had set his claim for regularization on the fact that persons junior to him as daily wagers were regularized in 1990 and before, but he was not regularized.

A single judge of the high court had allowed the claim and given directions for the regularization of the appellant from the date on which his juniors were regularized. However, a division bench set aside the order of the single judge. This led the appellant to approach the Supreme Court.

The apex court said that as per its decision in the Secretary, State of Karnataka vs Uma Devi and Others case, two pre-conditions were to be fulfilled in order to claim regularization of employment. These were:

- Initial appointment must be done by the competent authority.

- There has to be a sanctioned post on which the daily rated employee must be working.

The Supreme Court said that in the case of the appellant, both conditions were missing. Therefore, the rejection of his regularization request was correct on the part of the authority and the high court.