Holding that a welfare state could not keep employees in “prolonged uncertainty” while extracting continuous work through endlessly renewed contracts, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed regularisation of National Health Mission (NHM) employees who have completed more than 10 years of continuous service.
Justice Sandeep Moudgil, allowing a batch of more than 100 petitions, ordered the respondents to “take immediate steps” to regularise eligible petitioners within eight weeks.
The petitioners had sought a writ of mandamus directing the authorities to regularise their services from the dates of their initial appointments with consequential benefits, including arrears and promotions, besides restraining fresh regular appointments in the same or similar cadres to their detriment.
The petitioners were engaged under the National Health Mission (earlier National Rural Health Mission) under the Human Resources Guidelines-2022.
The court noted that their appointments followed a duly notified process involving advertisements, scrutiny of qualifications and preparation of merit lists by competent committees, after which appointment letters were issued through competent state authorities, including civil surgeons’ offices.
Allowing the petitions, Justice Moudgil ruled: “The respondents are directed to take immediate steps required to regularise the services of those petitioners who have completed more than ten years of continuous service, in accordance with law. Necessary orders be passed regularizing their services within a period of eight weeks.”
The judgment dwelt extensively on constitutional principles governing public employment.
The court observed that Articles 14 and 16 guaranteed not a right to appointment, but a right to equal opportunity through a fair, transparent and non-arbitrary process.
“At the same time, employment under the state is closely bound with the right to livelihood,” the court said, adding that the state, as a model employer, was expected to act with “fairness, consistency, and a sense of public duty”.
In strong observations on prolonged contractual employment, the Bench said: “A welfare State cannot justify arrangements that keep individuals in a state of prolonged uncertainty where the need for work is continuous. Administrative convenience cannot displace constitutional obligation.”
The court added that the problem lay not merely in the origin of the appointments, but in their continuation without efforts to bring them within a lawful recruitment framework.
“Year after year of renewals, without a corresponding effort to bring the engagement within the fold of a lawful recruitment process, bespeaks not necessity but neglect. The Constitution does not countenance a regime where the State draws upon regular labour while denying the structure of regular employment.”
Calling perpetual temporariness constitutionally impermissible, Justice Moudgil added: “Such temporary engagement in perpetuity wears the mask of administration, but carries the mark of arbitrariness.”
Rejecting the state’s plea of financial constraints, the court held that the employees could not be made to bear the burden of the government’s staffing choices.
“The state cannot steady its finances by placing the burden upon those who discharge its most basic and continuous public functions,” the judgment asserted.
In another sharp passage, the court said: “Fiscal constraint may guide policy, but it cannot become a convenient alibi to sidestep fairness, reason, and the obligation to organise public employment on lawful and enduring lines.”
The court emphasised that labels such as “contractual appointment” could not by themselves defeat legitimate claims arising from long, uninterrupted service in essential public functions.
“It is imperative that this court… refrains from placing unnecessary reliance on the initial label of ‘contractual appointment’ affixed to the petitioners.”
The judgment added that refusal of regularisation merely because the original terms of engagement did not specifically provide for it would be “contrary to the principles of fairness and equity”.
The court found it undisputed that many petitioners had served continuously for over a decade without interruption or adverse remark, while the respondents had failed to place material disputing either the continuity or quality of service.
Justice Moudgil cautioned that unfair state employment practices had consequences beyond government service disputes.
“The state has itself indulged in a manner of dealing with its employees which bears the clear imprint of exploitation,” the court said.
Warning of a “ripple effect”, the bench added: “Private employers, quick to draw comfort from State practice, may feel emboldened to adopt similar methods, thereby normalising what ought never to be normalised.”
Invoking ancient Indian political philosophy, the judgment cited a verse from the Mahabharata’s Shanti Parva to underline that the legitimacy of governance rested in the welfare of those governed, saying the ethic resonated deeply with the constitutional doctrine requiring the state to act as a “model employer” ensuring “fairness, dignity, and security”.
Concluding, the court held that the petitioners, having been selected through due process, continuously discharging essential functions and remaining in service for over a decade, had “acquired a legitimate claim for regularisation. To deny them such consideration would be to perpetuate uncertainty where stability is warranted.”
