RAJENDRA PRASADS Vs. STATE OF U P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Petitioners of the first two writ petitions, who were enlisted as daily-rated employees in the Public Works Department and the Minor Irrigation Department of the Government of U. P. respectively, have invoked the procedure of this Court for the (win reliefs of mandamus to the respondents to regularise their services in their respective posts and to pay equal salary to them as admissible to the regular employees of the department performing similar duties.

(2.) The facts wrapped in brevity, are that the petitioners of Writ Petition No. 13197 of 1996 were allegedly appointed as class IV employees on daily wages on different dates between 1985 and 1989. The petitioners of Writ Petition No. 13246 of 1996 too entered the service as helpers allegedly on daily wages on different dates between 1982 and 1992. The third Writ Petition No. 14281 of 1998 instituted by Jal Vigyan Anusandhan Karamchari Union. Bahadurabad and five others, seeks the relief of mandamus commanding the respondents to regularise the services of the members of petitioner No. 1 from the date of their initial appointments in the Irrigation Department of the Government of U. P. and pay them the salary due to them with effect from the said date. It is alleged that petitioner Nos. 2 and 4 entered the service as 'Beldar' on daily wage basis in the year 1990, while petitioner Nos. 3, 5 and 6 made their debut in the service in the year 1990. 1982 and 1978 respectively. It is further alleged that they are at present being paid wages at the rate of Rs. 1,200 per month. It is stated that each of the petitioners herein, has been discharging his duties in unabated continuity ever since his appointment. Since these petitions are knit together by common questions of law and fact, they have been taken up together for being heard and disposed of by a common order with the consent of the counsel for the parties.

(3.) Learned counsel appearing for the petitioners emphatically canvassed that the petitioners were albeit, appointed on dally wages irrespective of the fact whether there was any vacancy, but their unabated continuance should be reckoned with to merit consideration that there is regular need for their services and that they are being made to work on daily wage basis with the specific purpose to a design of balking them of the benefits of permanency in service. The learned counsel placed credence on the decision of the Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Piara Singh, JT 1992 (5) SC 179 : Khagesh Kumar and others v. I. G. Registration and others, JT 1995 (7) SC 545 and State of U. P. and others v. Putti Lal. (1998) 1 UPLBEC 313. Sri Saghir Ahmad, learned counsel for the petitioners in the first two petitions submitted that in view of the observations made by the Apex Court in Khagesh Kumar (supra), the petitioners are entitled to he considered for regularisation under the provisions of the U. P. Regularisation of Ad Hoc Appointments (Posts Outside the Purview of the Public Service Commission) Rules, 1979, as amended upto date. Sri P. C. Jhingan, appearing for the petitioners in the third petition, pressed for regularisation and 'equal pay for equal work' especially on the dint of the decision of the Apex Court in the case of Dharvad District P.W.D. Literate Daily Employees' Association and others v. State of Karnataka and Others, 1990 (3) UPLBEC 2151, and the decision of this Court in the case of State of U. P. v. Putti Lal (supra). Learned standing counsel, on the other hand, quipped that the Rules of 1979 are not intended for application to the facts of the present case and in the absence of any scheme for regularisation and requisite number of posts, the petitioners were not entitled to claim regularisation nor were they entitled to claim parity in the matter of pay with their regularly recruited counter-parts in the department. In re Regularisation