Part-time employees of government institutions cannot claim salary parity with regular employees: Supreme Court

The Supreme Court on Thursday held that “part-time temporary employees in a government-run institution cannot claim parity in salary with regular employees on the principle of equal pay for equal work.” (Union of India vs Ilmo Devi).The Bench of Justices MR Shah and AS Bopanna held that part-time employees are not entitled to seek regularization as they are not working against any sanctioned post and there cannot be any permanent continuance of part-time temporary employees..The top court further held that the regularization can be only as per the regularization policy declared by the State/ government and nobody can claim the regularization as a matter of right dehors the regularization policy..In the instant case, the Court held that in absence of any sanctioned post and considering the fact that the respondents were serving as a contingent paid part-time Safai Karamcharies, even otherwise, they were not entitled to regularization under the regularization policy of June, 2014..The petitioners had challenged a judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which had modified an order passed by the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).The CAT had directed the Central government to revisit the whole issue, complete the exercise to reformulate their regularization/absorption policy, and take a decision to sanction the posts in a phased manner..The Supreme Court noted that the High Court, in exercise of the powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, cannot direct the government and/or its department to formulate a particular regularization policy..“Framing of any scheme is no function of the Court and is the sole prerogative of the Government. Even the creation and/or sanction of the posts is also the sole prerogative of the Government and the High Court, in the exercise of the power under Article 226 of the Constitution, cannot issue Mandamus and/or direct to create and sanction the posts. Even the regularization policy to regularize the services of the employees working on the temporary status and/or casual labourers is a policy decision and in judicial review, the Court cannot issue Mandamus and/or issue mandatory directions to do so,” the top court held..The High Court had directed granting minimum basic pay of Group ‘D’ posts from a particular date to those, who have completed 20 years of part-time daily wage service also.However, though the top court stated that this direction too is unsustainable as the part-time wagers, who are working for four to five hours a day cannot claim parity with other Group ‘D’ posts, yet the Court refrained from quashing the same. This was in view of the order passed by the Supreme Court dated July 22, 2016 while issuing notice in the present appeals, whereby it had said that it is not inclined to interfere with the directions of the High Court in paragraph 23 and the same should be implemented..[Read Judgment]