'State Can't Exploit Labour Of Unregulated Worker': Delhi HC Directs ICAR To Regularise Daily Wage Labourers [Read Judgment]

The present case pertains to the matter of regularisation of daily wage labourers in Indian Council for Agricultural Research. These labourers have been rendering their services to the Council, on a daily wage basis, for a period of 20 years.

Moreover, from 1995 onwards, each of the labourers has put in more than 240 days a year. From 2000 onwards, they appear to have worked continuously throughout the year, on a year-to-year basis.

Despite their continued services, they were neither regularised as 'Group D' employees nor were they given benefits which casual labourers were entitled to under the Casual Labourers (Grant of Temporary Status) Scheme, 1993.

Aggrieved by the same, the daily wage labourers had made multiple applications before the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT). In its orders, CAT had directed ICAR to do the following:

1. To grant these labourers temporary status as Casual Labourers as on 1st September, 1993, irrespective of the availability of regular vacancies in terms of the Casual Labourers (Grant of Temporary Status and Regularization) Scheme of Government of India, 1993).
2. ICAR was further directed that they would be paid wages at daily rates with reference to the minimum of the pay scale for a corresponding regular Group 'D' official, including Dearness Allowance, House Rent Allowance and City Compensatory Allowance
3. ICAR was also directed to create additional regular posts to absorb temporary workers, after making an assessment of regular staff's productivity and output.

ICAR challenged the aforementioned order of the CAT before the present court.

Assailing the demand of daily wage labourers as legitimate, the Division Bench of Justice Muralidhar and Justice Talwant Singh observed that:

'What emerges from the facts placed on record is that the Respondents had indeed been engaged on a continuous basis for more than 20 years as casual labourers. The need for their services is therefore self-evident. There appears to be no rational explanation as to why if there is indeed a requirement for their services and they have been continuously engaged, no posts of Group 'D' have been created to regularise their services.'

The court also noted that the failure of the Petitioner to abide by the directions given by CAT, also 'flies in the face of' the rule laid down by the Supreme Court in the cases of Uma Devi, ML Kesari and Sonia Gandhi.

Finally, the court refused to interfere with CAT's order by noting that Petitioner's refusal to accord temporary status to the Respondents and pay them even 1/30th of the minimum pay scale is clearly arbitrary and unreasonable and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

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