PRADIP CHAKRABORTY Vs. STATE OF ASSAM

JUDGEMENT

(1.) All these writ petitions raising identical issues of fact and law, being inter-related, were heard together and are being disposed of by this common order. The core issue involved in this batch of writ petitions is the claim of work charge employees, muster roll workers and similar category of employees engaged prior to 01.04.1993 for regularisation of their service under the Government of Assam. Related grievance, which can also be said to be an offshoot of the core issue, is the claim of such categories of employees and workers or their family members for pension or family pension as the case may be, after attaining the age of superannuation or in the case of death, by creating supernumerary post personal to the incumbent and regularising his service for one day. The grievance has crystallized in the form of challenge to the Office Memorandum (OM) dated 16.06.2012 issued by the Finance (EC-II) Department, Government of Assam, which has ruled out any further regularisation on both counts.

(2.) The present batch of writ petitions have their genesis in the earlier rounds of litigation which culminated in a Full Bench judgment of this Court in the case of Jitendra Kalita & Ors. v. State of Assam & Ors., 2006 2 GauLT 654. State of Assam is being confronted by the problem of a large number of work charge employees, muster roll workers and similar category of employees seeking regularisation which has assumed endemic proportion despite what was thought to be the conclusive intervention of this Court through the Full Bench in Jitendra Kalita. Of course, this problem is not confined or peculiar to the State of Assam only. It has a pan Indian complexion and had assumed alarming proportion so much so that a Constitution Bench of the Hon'ble Supreme Court had to step in. It is the case of State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi, 2006 4 SCC 1. Yet the problem refuses to fade away and continues to confront the Court. This has resulted in the present round of litigation which is sought to be answered through the instant judgment.

(3.) The Full Bench in Jitendra Kalita had very lucidly and elaborately set out the facts. Therefore, for better appreciation, the facts as narrated in Jitendra Kalita are liberally quoted and referred to in the instant judgment. Relevant portion of Jitendra Kalita dealing with the genesis of the problem and the attempts made by the State for resolution of the problem, reads as under:--