State Must Treat Similarly Placed Workers Equally; Left-Out Muster Roll Workers Cannot Be Denied Regularisation Due to Official Lapses
Case Name: Sukhendu Bhattacharjee and Others v. The State of Assam and Others
Citation: 2026 INSC 523
Date of Judgment/Order: 21 May 2026
Bench: Justice Vikram Nath, Justice Sandeep Mehta and Justice Vijay Bishnoi
Held: The Supreme Court held that the State cannot regularise nearly 30,000 Work Charged and Muster Roll workers under a Cabinet policy and thereafter deny the same benefit to other eligible workers who stood on the same footing but were left out due to clerical errors, inadvertent omissions or administrative lapses. The Court held that such selective implementation violates Article 14, defeats legitimate expectation, and is inconsistent with the State’s obligation to act as a model employer. The Court clarified that the appellants were not claiming regularisation merely under the one-time exception in Umadevi, but were seeking equal implementation of the State’s own Cabinet decision dated 22.07.2005, which had already been acted upon for similarly placed workers.
Summary: The appeals arose from long-standing claims of Work Charged and Muster Roll workers in Assam who had been engaged prior to 01.04.1993 and had rendered decades of continuous service. The State of Assam had earlier issued several communications and, by Cabinet decision dated 22.07.2005, decided to regularise such workers by creating thousands of posts, resulting in regularisation of nearly 30,000 similarly placed employees. However, several workers, including the appellants, were left out mainly due to clerical lapses, spelling errors, omissions from lists and administrative inconsistencies. The learned Single Judge of the Gauhati High Court quashed the 2012 Office Memorandum by which the State refused further regularisation and directed regularisation of eligible left-out workers, but the Division Bench reversed that decision relying on Umadevi. The Supreme Court set aside the Division Bench’s view, holding that Umadevi could not be used as a shield to justify discriminatory denial of benefits under a pre-existing Cabinet policy which the State had itself substantially implemented.
Decision: The Supreme Court allowed the appeals, set aside the judgment dated 08.06.2017 passed by the Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court, and affirmed the learned Single Judge’s judgment dated 20.12.2013. The Court directed that the appellants be treated as regularised in service under the Cabinet decision dated 22.07.2005 from the date similarly placed 30,000 employees were granted that benefit. The State of Assam was directed to identify and verify eligible appellants, create supernumerary posts where necessary, and grant all consequential benefits including pay fixation, continuity of service, pensionary and post-retiral benefits. Retired appellants were directed to receive notional regularisation with monetary benefits and arrears for recalculation of pension, gratuity and terminal dues, while benefits of deceased appellants were to be released to their legal heirs. The entire exercise, including calculation and payment of arrears, was directed to be completed within one year, and the benefit was confined to appellants working before the cut-off date of 01.04.1993.