The Supreme Court has directed the Government of Goa to regularise the services of long-serving workers engaged through the Public Works Department (PWD) Labour Supply Society, holding that the State cannot, after benefiting from their continuous services for decades and granting them temporary status, defeat their claim to regularisation by relying on an internal procedural deficiency.
The Bench of Justice Sanjay Karol and Justice Nongmeikapam Kotiswar Singh observed that the case fell within the one-time regularisation principle recognised in paragraph 53 of State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3), particularly because the workers’ engagement was not found to be the result of a clandestine or illegal backdoor appointment, but followed a structured process created and operated by the State itself.
The dispute concerned members of the PWD Labour Supply Society, which had been constituted by the State of Goa itself and was headed by the Principal Chief Engineer of the PWD. The Society was specifically created to address exploitation of contract labour engaged in PWD works and to facilitate their eventual regularisation.
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The workers had originally been engaged between 1967 and 2003 through private contractors executing PWD works. They belonged to unskilled, semi-skilled, skilled and highly skilled categories. The State subsequently created the Labour Supply Society to supply workers to PWD establishments.
The Supreme Court attached considerable significance to the fact that the Society was not an ordinary private contractor operating independently of the Government. It was a State-created institutional arrangement, headed by a senior PWD official, and its very purpose was connected with ending exploitation of contract workers and ultimately regularising their services.
The Court traced a series of administrative decisions demonstrating that the Government had consistently contemplated absorption of the workers.
On July 27, 2012, the Chief Minister’s office resolved to formulate a policy for absorbing members of the Society into PWD establishments. A committee was thereafter constituted to examine their eligibility and categorise workers into posts such as Meter Readers, Work Assistants, Pump Attendants, Watchmen, Helper-Plumbers and Electricians.
A subsequent note dated September 4, 2013, approved by the Finance Department and the Chief Minister, recommended freezing direct recruitment in PWD pending regularisation and absorption of Society members. The recommendation also contemplated that the Society would not recruit fresh members and would ultimately be dissolved after its members were regularised.
Most significantly, on December 4, 2013, a proposal to grant temporary status to 1,399 Society members who had completed eight years of service as on April 1, 2013 was approved by the Minister for PWD and the Chief Minister.
This culminated in the order dated February 7, 2014, issued by the Principal Chief Engineer, PWD/Additional Secretary to the Government, recording that the Government had sanctioned temporary status and that the workers would be entitled to absorption in PWD establishments as and when vacancies arose.
The Court held that the State’s intention could not be determined by examining one document in isolation. Instead, its intention had to be assessed from the totality of its conduct over a sustained period.
The Court referred to the 2012 and 2013 decisions, the categorisation and suitability exercise, the proposed freeze on direct recruitment, the grant of temporary status with parity in pay and emoluments, and the February 2014 order. Taken cumulatively, these actions demonstrated that the State intended to retain the services of the workers and move towards their absorption.
The Supreme Court observed that once the Government had deliberately conferred temporary status along with equal pay and parity in other emoluments with regular employees, it necessarily indicated that the State regarded the workers’ services as necessary and their work as equivalent in value and quality to that performed by regular employees.
The Court stressed that temporary status in such circumstances could not be treated as an “empty administrative label”. According to the judgment, it represented the State’s considered intention to absorb the workers.
One of the central issues before the Supreme Court was the State’s contention that the February 7, 2014 order lacked the requisite concurrence of the Finance Department and approvals contemplated under the Rules of Business.
The Supreme Court rejected the State’s attempt to rely on this objection at such a belated stage.
The Court noted that the 2014 order had been placed before the Bombay High Court at Goa on April 9, 2014, and the earlier writ petition had been disposed of on the basis of the statement made by the State’s Advocate General concerning the workers’ entitlement to absorption. Thereafter, the State continued to utilise the workers’ services, maintained their temporary status and even forwarded their 2018 representation to the High-Level Empowered Committee without raising the alleged lack of concurrence or approval.
The Supreme Court held that the State could not subsequently rely upon its own alleged procedural deficiency to defeat the legitimate expectation generated by its consistent conduct over several years.
The Court linked this conclusion to the State’s obligation to act as a model employer, observing that allowing the Government to benefit from long and uninterrupted service while simultaneously repudiating the commitment that sustained that service would be inconsistent with that obligation.
The judgment also provides an important clarification concerning the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench ruling in State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (3).
The State had argued that Umadevi prohibited regularisation of workers who had not entered public employment through open and competitive recruitment against sanctioned posts. The Supreme Court acknowledged the importance of Umadeviin preventing backdoor entry into public employment, but held that the judgment cannot be mechanically invoked in every case involving temporary or contractual workers.
The Court relied on subsequent decisions including State of J&K v. District Bar Association, Bandipora, Sheo Narain Nagar v. State of U.P., Jaggo v. Union of India, Vinod Kumar v. Union of India and Shripal v. Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad to explain the distinction between genuinely illegal appointments and irregular engagements involving workers who have served for years in essential and perennial roles.
According to the Court, Umadevi was directed against illegal backdoor appointments and was never intended to become a mechanism for perpetuating exploitative temporary employment where workers have continuously performed essential functions for years.
The Supreme Court ultimately found that the present case fell within the one-time measure contemplated by paragraph 53 of Umadevi.
The Court noted that paragraph 53 recognises the possibility of regularising irregular, as distinguished from illegal, appointments of duly qualified persons who have continued for ten years or more without the intervention of a court order.
In the present case, the workers’ engagement was not considered to be the product of clandestine backdoor entry. Rather, it followed the creation of a State-controlled Society, a Cabinet-approved categorisation exercise and the subsequent grant of temporary status with the active involvement of the State’s highest executive authorities.
The Court therefore found that the High Court had erred in treating the workers’ engagement as fundamentally illegal while simultaneously recognising that, after being granted temporary status, they had been treated at par with regular PWD employees in terms of pay and emoluments.
The Supreme Court also took into account the length and nature of the workers’ service.
It observed that several workers had served for well over a decade and some for decades, performing duties indistinguishable from those carried out by regularly appointed PWD employees. The workers were predominantly from unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled categories and had continued to serve the State’s own instrumentality for prolonged periods.
The Court held that denying regularisation after taking the benefit of such long service, particularly when the workers themselves were not responsible for the initial procedural irregularity, would be manifestly unfair.
The judgment further observed that denying regularisation in such circumstances could itself reproduce the very exploitation that the PWD Labour Supply Society had originally been established to prevent.
The State had also argued that the statement made by its Advocate General in the earlier proceedings could not bind the Government if it amounted to an incorrect concession on a question of law.
The Supreme Court rejected that characterisation. It distinguished the case from situations involving a mere concession on a legal proposition.
According to the Court, the Advocate General had relied upon the February 7, 2014 executive order, which itself emerged from a structured administrative process. The statement before the High Court therefore concerned an existing executive order and Government policy rather than merely conceding a disputed proposition of law. Consequently, the principle in Uptron India Ltd. v. Shammi Bhan was held inapplicable.
While allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court set aside the Bombay High Court’s judgment and declared the appellants entitled to regularisation in the PWD establishment of the Government of Goa in the posts or categories to which they had been assigned following the 2013 categorisation exercise and grant of temporary status.
The State has been directed to frame an appropriate scheme within four months to implement the regularisation. Importantly, the Court expressly restricted the benefit to those members of the Society who were members when the writ petition was instituted on February 9, 2021, making clear that the direction would not operate as a general precedent for other workers who were not parties to the proceedings.
Where sufficient sanctioned vacant posts are unavailable, the Government has been directed to create supernumerary posts on a one-to-one basis to accommodate the concerned workers. Such posts will be personal to the workers and will automatically cease upon their retirement, resignation, death or cessation of service and will not become part of the regular cadre for future appointments.
The Court further directed that the workers would be deemed regularised from February 9, 2021, the date on which they instituted their first writ petition in their individual capacity. They will receive consequential benefits including seniority and pensionary and retiral benefits from that date. However, monetary arrears of pay and allowances arising from regularisation will not be payable for any period before the date of the Supreme Court’s judgment.
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