Punjab & Haryana High Court Directs Regularisation of Long-Serving Daily Wage and Contractual Employees; Holds State Cannot Perpetuate Perennial Work Through Temporary Labels
Case Name: Joginder and Others v. State of Haryana and Others
Date of Judgment: 31 December 2025
Citation: CWP-31304-2025 and connected matters
Bench: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Sandeep Moudgil
Held: The Punjab and Haryana High Court allowed a batch of connected writ petitions and directed the State of Haryana to regularise the services of the petitioners who had rendered long, continuous service on daily wage, contractual, ad hoc or similar bases. The Court held that the State’s failure to meaningfully consider the petitioners’ claims for regularisation despite the existence of multiple regularisation policies and decades of service was arbitrary and violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. It was further held that the decision in Uma Devi cannot be used as a shield to justify exploitative employment practices or to deny even consideration for regularisation where the engagement is long-standing and the work is perennial in nature.
Summary: The petitions were filed by forty-one employees engaged by various departments of the State of Haryana between 1993 and 1996 as daily wagers, contractual workers, or casual employees. The petitioners continued to discharge duties uninterruptedly for periods extending up to three decades, including work of an essential and perennial nature such as operation and maintenance of public utilities. Despite the issuance of several regularisation policies by the State from time to time, including policies dated 27 May 1993, 7 March 1996, 1 October 2003 and subsequent amendments, the petitioners’ services were neither regularised nor was their eligibility fairly examined.
The State resisted the petitions on the grounds that the petitioners were not appointed against sanctioned posts, lacked prescribed qualifications, had intermittent service, and had not specified a particular policy under which regularisation was claimed. Reliance was placed on State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi to argue that no vested right to regularisation exists.
The High Court undertook a detailed examination of service jurisprudence post-Uma Devi and noted that the Constitution Bench judgment itself draws a clear distinction between illegal and irregular appointments. The Court observed that subsequent decisions, including M.L. Kesari, Jaggo v. Union of India, Prem Singh, Nihal Singh and other judgments of the Supreme Court and the High Court, consistently hold that employees who have rendered ten years or more of continuous service performing regular and necessary functions cannot be denied consideration for regularisation merely by changing the nomenclature of their engagement.
The Court found that the petitioners’ work and conduct had never been found wanting and that similarly situated employees had already been regularised by the State. The continued classification of the petitioners as daily wage or contractual workers, despite extracting perennial service for decades, was held to amount to exploitation and arbitrary State action. The plea of delay and laches was rejected on the ground that non-consideration under an existing regularisation policy gives rise to a continuing cause of action.
The Court further emphasised that a welfare State cannot profit from its own inaction by pleading absence of sanctioned posts after extracting labour for years, and that governance cannot be built on perpetual temporariness. Articles 14 and 16 were held to govern not only entry into public service but the entire lifecycle of public employment, including fair consideration for regularisation.
Decision: All the writ petitions were allowed. The impugned orders, if any, rejecting the petitioners’ claims for regularisation were set aside. The State of Haryana was directed to regularise the petitioners in accordance with law under the relevant regularisation policy applicable at the time when each petitioner first became eligible, including the policies of 1993, 1996, 2003 and 2011. Petitioners who did not fall within those policies but had completed more than ten years of service as on 31 December 2025 were also directed to be granted the benefit of regularisation. The respondents were further directed to release all consequential benefits, including fixation of pay and arrears with interest at the rate of six percent per annum. The entire exercise was ordered to be completed within eight weeks.