Daily wager can't be regularised, if not appointed by authority against sanctioned post: SC [Read Judgment]

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has emphasised that a daily wage worker cannot be regularised unless the appointment has been made by the competent authority against a sanctioned post.

A bench of Justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia dismissed an appeal filed by Vibhuti Shankar Pandey against an order by the Madhya Pradesh High Court's division bench of February 13, 2020.

The HC's division bench had set aside the single bench's direction for regularising the services of Pandey as supervisor in the state government's water resources department.

The appellant claimed he was engaged in 1980 as a Supervisor, on daily rated basis, under a project of the State Water Resources Department.

He sought regularization on the post of supervisor/time keeper.  

Admittedly, the minimum qualification for the said post was matriculation with mathematics; a qualification which the appellant did not possess, the court noted.  

However, rhese qualifications were relaxed by a Government Circular on December 31, 2010. The appellant sought his regularisation as he was qualified for the post and had been working on daily wage basis for a long period of time.  

The claim of the appellant for regularisation was, however, rejected for the reasons that though the minimum qualifications of matriculation with mathematics will not come in the way for his regularisation, but the fact remains that the appellant was never appointed against any post. Moreover, his appointment was never made by the competent authority and there were no posts available at the time for regularisation, the court noted.  

The appellant, on the other hand, had set his claim for regularisation as persons who were junior to him as daily wagers were regularised in the year 1990 or even before.

Citing the 2006 judgement in Secretary, State of Karnataka and  Ors Vs Umadevi and Ors, the top court said the division bench rightly held that the single judge has not followed the principle of law as initial appointment must be done by the competent authority and there must be a sanctioned post on which the daily rated employee must be working.  

These two conditions were clearly missing in the case of the present appellant. The division bench of the High Court therefore has to our mind rightly allowed the appeal and set aside the order dated June 27, 2019, the bench said.

[Read Judgment]