Regularisation Cannot Be Denied Solely Because Initial Appointment Was Not Against Sanctioned Post: Supreme Court

In a major development, the Supreme Court on Thursday (May 21) held that the mere fact that workers were initially appointed on a temporary basis and not against sanctioned posts would not, by itself, disentitle them from seeking regularisation under the principles laid down in State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi.

The Court observed that where employees have rendered continuous service for decades in departments discharging regular governmental functions, they would still be entitled to consideration for regularisation, regardless of the fact that their initial appointment was not against the sanctioned post.

Setting aside the Gauhati High Court's Division Bench judgment, a bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta allowed the batch of appeals filed by the employees who were temporarily engaged on muster rolls in various departments of Government of Assam but denied regularisation of service despite rendering the regular nature of services for more than a decade.

“…we are unable to accept the contention of the State that the appellants cannot be granted regularization on the ground that they were not initially appointed against duly sanctioned posts. The State, having engaged the appellants prior to 1st April, 1993, utilised their services continuously for decades, and having itself framed and implemented a Cabinet policy regularizing nearly 30,000 similarly situated workers, cannot now exclude the appellants by taking shelter behind a rigid or technical reading of Umadevi (supra).”, the court observed.

“…it is evident that engaging workers on muster rolls was a consistently employed policy of the State which continued for prolonged period of time. The appellants were not engaged for sporadic or seasonal purposes but were taken on muster rolls and have rendered continuous service for decades in departments performing regular governmental functions. The State itself acknowledged the magnitude of the issue and framed a Cabinet policy to regularize similarly situated workers, acting upon it in respect of nearly 30,000 employees. In such circumstances, to deny consideration to the fraction of remaining eligible workers including the appellants, by taking shelter under a rigid reading of Umadevi (supra) would defeat the very principles of fairness and non-arbitrariness that this Court has consistently upheld.”, the court added.

The Court also criticized the State of Assam for denying them the benefit of regularisation, merely because their initial engagement was not against the sanctioned post, as held in Uma Devi (supra). The Court said that the State Government cannot discriminate between the similarly placed employees, upon finding that, except for the Appellants, the other 30,000 similarly situated employees were granted the benefit of regularisation by the State through a Cabinet policy decision.

“Once the State confers a benefit upon a particular class, it cannot arbitrarily deny the same benefit to others who are identically situated. Applying the principle in the present case, the State, having regularized nearly 30,000 workers under its own policy decision, could not refuse to regularize the remaining eligible workers who stood on the same footing. To do so amounts to treating equals unequally, which is impermissible under Article 14 of the Constitution.”, the court observed.

The Court reiterated the principle laid down in Jaggo v. Union Of India, 2024 LiveLaw (SC) 1032, observing that “the practice of retaining employees for decades under deceptively titled designations, while simultaneously extracting regular work integral to the administration, has been disapproved consistently.”

Accordingly, the appeals were allowed.

Cause Title: SUKHENDU BHATTACHARJEE AND OTHERS VERSUS THE STATE OF ASSAM AND OTHERS (with connected cases)

Citation : 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 529

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Appearance:

For Appellant(s) : Mr. Siddhartha Jha, AOR Mr. Kartik Jha, Adv. Ms. Nitika Sud, Adv. Mr. Avijit Roy, AOR Ms. Anitha Shenoy, Sr. Adv. Ms. Srishti Agnihotri, AOR Ms. Sadhana Madhavan, Adv. Ms. Kavana Rao, Adv. Mr. D. P. Singh, Adv. Ms. Anchal Kanthed, Adv. Ms. Sanjana Grace Thomas, Adv. Mr. Seema Sharma, Adv. Mr. Utkarsh Kumar, Adv. Mr. Somiran Sharma, AOR Dr. Mrs. Vipin Gupta, AOR Mr. B K Sharma, Sr. Adv. Mr. R B Phookan, Adv. Ms. Neha Tandon, Adv. Mr. Gautam Talukdar, AOR Ms. Tapasya Kakaty, Adv. Mr. Nilim Sharma, Adv. Mr. Subhra Jyoti Sharma, Adv. Mr. Manish Goswami, Sr. Adv. Mr. Gaurav Shukla, Adv. Mr. Rameshwar Prasad Goyal, AOR

For Respondent(s) : Mr. Chinmoy Pradip Sharma, Sr. A.A.G. Mr. Ankit Roy, AOR Ms. Nimisha Menon, Adv. Mr. Irfan Hasieb, Adv. Mr. Vijay Deora, Adv. Mr. Aditya Agarwal, Adv. Ms. Mrinalini Ramesh, Adv. Mr. Jaideep Gupta, Sr. Adv. Ms. Diksha Rai, AOR Ms. Nimisha Menon, Adv. Mr. Piyush Vyas, Adv. Ms. Purvat Wali, Adv. Mr. Riddhi Bose, Adv. Mrs. Rishi Agarwal, Adv. Mrs. Racheeta Chawla, Adv. Mrs. Sampriti Baksi, Adv. Mr. Bharadwaj S., AOR Mr. Manish Raghav , AOR Mr. Nitin Jain, Adv. Ms. Anisa Jain, Adv. Ms. Sangita Tahbildar, Adv. Mr. Lokesh Sharma, Adv. Mr. Brijesh Kumar Tamber, AOR Mr. B.K Sharma, Sr. Adv. Mr. Kaushik Choudhury, AOR Mr. Saksham Garg, Adv. Mr. Jyotirmoy Chatterjee, Adv. Mr. Nilim Sarma, Adv.