PREM CHAND Vs. STATE OF H.P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The affidavit -in -reply filed in the present case makes a curious reading. It is strange to find the State Government, which is committed to the goal of a Welfare State, coming forward with assertions of the nature therein made in defence to claims advanced by the petitioners which, prima facie, appear to be just, legitimate and lawful. The posture adopted in the affidavit betrays a total lack of commitment to the Constitutional philosophy of socio -economic justice enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution as well as in the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Part IV thereof and also a blisseul ignorance of the principles of equality and rationality embodied in Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. It also conveniently omits to take note of the Jaw laid down by the Supreme Court in a series of cases and of the decisions rendered and orders made by this Court in numerous cases in which the State was a party and which are presumed to be within its knowledge. One could have contemplated a die -hard private employer coming forward with such a plea in defence but not the State, which has always to function as a model and as an enlightened employer. Such defences ill -come from the mouth of the State and the Court legitimately expects that it will not have to countenance a defence of this nature in any similar case in future. The responsibility really lies on the shoulders of those whose duty it is to advice the State in legal matters to ensure that no defence is taken which is not in consonance with the Constitutional provisions as well as with the law declared by this Court and by the highest court in the country.

(2.) In Rattan Lal and others v. The State of Haryana and others, (1985) 4 SCC 43, the policy of giving ad hoc appointments for defined periods and renewing them after a fictional break year after year was deprecated as "pernicious" and as leading to a breach of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution since it unnecessarily subjected the employees" to an arbitrary hiring and firing policy. It was observed that such a situation could not be permitted to last any longer. The State was, therefore, directed to take immediate steps to fill up the vacancies in a regular manner in accordance with law and to allow the existing ad hoc teachers to continue to hold the posts till regular appointment took place. A further direction was issued to consider sympathetically the question of relaxing the qualification of maximum age prescribed for appointment to the posts in the case of those ad hoc teachers who had been victims of such system and also to consider the regularisation of those who had under the extant rules become entitled to such benefit. The State was asked to pay to them the salary and allowances for the period of Summer Vacation (the period of fictional breaks) alongwith other benefits such as maternity or medical leave etc., as long as they held office under the Courts order.

(3.) In L, Robert DSouza v. The Executive Engineer, Southern Railway and another, AIR 1982 SC 854, the Supreme Court pronounced way back in 1982 in the context of casual labour employed in the construction projects of the railways that it was "highly unethical, contrary to the constitutional philosphy of Socio -economic justice" to continue to treat such workmen serving for 10, 20 and 30 years at a stretch without break as daily -rated workmen and observed that it was high time that the railway authorities remedied "the utterly unfair" situation "wholly denying socio -economic justice" and brought its employment policy "in conformity with the modern concept of justice and fair play to the lowest and the lowliest".