'Bhagavad Gita Reminds State Of Its Duty To Common Good': Punjab & Haryana High Court Orders Regularisation Of Daily Wagers

Emphasising that Indian constitutionalism is rooted in the civilisational idea of Rajdharma, where governance must be guided by justice, fairness and compassion, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has held that a welfare State cannot, in good conscience or law, continue to extract uninterrupted service from workers while keeping them in perpetual insecurity.Justice Sandeep Moudgil said, "There is, finally, a moral vocabulary that is not foreign to Indian constitutionalism and it runs parallel to our civilisational idea of Rajdharma that the ruler's foremost duty is protection and fairness to those who sustain the State's functioning. Our ancient texts repeatedly place upon the sovereign an obligation to act with nyaya (justice), anrishamsya (non-cruelty), and balanced governance and the idea of lokasangraha as discussed in the Bhagvad Gita's reminds public power that action must serve social stability and the common good, not merely administrative convenience."The Court added that they are interpretive lamps that illuminate why a welfare State cannot, in good conscience or good law, keep citizens in endless precarity while taking uninterrupted benefit of their service. "When the State engages people to serve the public often in the lowest rungs, with the least bargaining power it must remember that governance is not merely about outputs but it is also about how those outputs are produced," it added.The observations were made while allowing a batch of writ petitions seeking regularisation of service. The petitioner had been engaged as a daily wage worker since 1994, continuously working as a Water Pump Operator/Tube-well Pump Operator for nearly three decades with a satisfactory service record.Despite the Haryana Government having framed multiple regularisation policies over the years, and despite several similarly situated employees being regularised, the petitioner's services were never considered for regularisation. His representation dated 19 September 2025 also remained undecided, compelling him to approach the High Court.The State opposed the plea on the ground that the petitioner was never appointed against a sanctioned post, lacked prescribed qualifications, had breaks in service, and that the petition suffered from delay and laches. Reliance was placed on State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi, M.P. Housing Board v. Manoj Shrivastava, and Union of India v. Ilmo Devi to contend that courts cannot direct regularisation contrary to constitutional norms of public employment.Rejecting the State's contentions, the Court undertook an extensive analysis of service jurisprudence and constitutional principles. Reconciling Uma Devi (2006) with subsequent judgments such as State of Karnataka v. M.L. Kesari (2010), the Court held that while illegal appointments cannot be regularised, employees who have rendered long, continuous service performing perennial duties are entitled to fair consideration for regularisation.The Court found that repeatedly labelling such employees as “daily wage” or “contractual” while extracting permanent work amounted to arbitrariness and exploitation, violating Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. Strong reliance was also placed on the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Jaggo v. Union of India (2024 SCC OnLine SC 3826), which held that no employee can be kept temporary indefinitely and that long service gives rise to a legitimate right of consideration.State Can't Be Allowed To Profit From Its Own InactionThe Court said, Service jurisprudence also recognizes something more fundamental that the State cannot be allowed to profit from its own inaction. When an institution extracts work for decades and then pleads, “there are no sanctioned posts”, it is not stating an inevitability of nature; it is confessing an administrative choice.It opined that Uma Devi(supra) cannot be used as a licence for exploitation of these employees by the State and its instrumentalities as was held by the Supreme Court in Nihal Singh wherein the court directed the State of Punjab to regularize the services of the appellants even by creating necessary posts within a period of three months from the date of judgment holding the appellants/employee entitled to all the benefits of services attached to the post, who are similar in nature.The Court concluded that the legally sustainable position is that regularization cannot be claimed as a matter of right where the initial entry is illegal or plainly unconstitutional but where the engagement is long, continuous, against sanctioned vacant posts of duly qualified persons, the State is under a constitutional duty to undertake fair consideration and to complete the one-time regularization exercise mandated in Umadevi (supra) as explained in M.L. Kesari (supra). It further added that where the State's defence is merely a change of label “contractual” while it continues to extract perennial work for years, courts are entitled to pierce the veil of form, test the action on the...

'Bhagavad Gita Reminds State Of Its Duty To Common Good': Punjab & Haryana High Court Orders Regularisation Of Daily Wagers

Aiman J. Chishti

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'Bhagavad Gita Reminds State Of Its Duty To Common Good': Punjab & Haryana High Court Orders Regularisation Of Daily Wagers

Aiman J. Chishti

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