State Farms Corporation of India Ltd. and Another vs Sher Singh and Others

G.S. Singhvi, J.—This appeal is directed against the order dated 29.10.1992 vide which the teamed Single Judge allowed Civil Writ Petition No. 283 of 1989 filed by the respondents and directed the appellants to regularise their services.

A pemsat of the record shows that the respondents were appointed as daily wage clerks at Central State Farm, Hissar between 11.7.1983 and 30.6.1986. They invoked jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India for directing the appellants not to terminate their services, to regularise their services and to pay them salary in the regular pay scale. They relied on the decision of the High Court in Piara Singh Versus State of Haryana 1988 (4) SLR 739 in support of their claims for regu-larisation of service.

In the written statement filed on behalf of the appellants, it was averred that the judgment of the Division Bench in Piara Singh''s case had no bearing on the services of the State Farms Corporation of India Limited (appellant No. 1) and as there was no provision in its policy for regularising the services of employees like the writ petitioners, they were not entitled to any relief.

The learned Single Judge allowed the writ petition and directed the appellants to regularise the services of the writ petitioners in view of the statement allegedly made by the counsel for the State and the decision of the Supreme Court in State of Haryana and others Vs. Piara Singh and others etc. etc., .

Shri V.K. Sharma invited our attention to para 26 of the judgment of the Supreme Court in Piara Singh''s case (supra) and argued that the principles laid down in that decision cannot be applied to the services of appellant No. 1. He, then, argued that the State Government was not a party in the writ petition and, therefore, reference in the impugned order to the statement allegedly made by the counsel for the State is an apparent error. He submitted that no one had appeared on behalf of the appellants before the learned Single Judge but by mistake his attendance had been recorded in the impugned order and the application filed under Order 47 Rule i of the CPC for rectification of the mistake was rejected by the Single Bench without assigning any reason..

Learned counsel for the respondents candidly conceded that the judgment of the Supreme Court in Piara Singh''s case (supra) does not have direct bearing on the claims of his clients. He, however, submitted that the Division Bench may not interfere with the order of the learned Single Judge because by now they have rendered almost 18 to 25 years of service under the Central State farm, Hissar.

Before dealing with the argument of the learned counsel, we deem it proper to take notice of the statement of Shri V.K, Sharma that appellant No. 1 had framed policies in 1988 and 1985 tor regularising the services or certain percentage of daily wage employees but the writ petitioners cannot get benefit of those policies because they are down-below in the seniority of daily wage clerks. Learned counsel stated that upto date, only 110 daily wage clerks have been regularised and as the names of the respondents appear beyond number 110, they cannot be regularised.

In our opinion, the order under challenge is legally unsustainable and deserves to be set aside, because the decisions of the Division Bench of this Court in Piara Singh v. Slate of Haryana (supra) and of the Supreme Court in State of Haryana v. Piara Singh (supra) have no bearing on the case of the writ petitioners and yet the learned Single Judge granted relief to them by relying upon those decisions. A perusal of para 26 of the decision of the Supreme Court makes it crystal clear that the directions given therein were meant for the States of Punjab and Haryana and their agencies and instrumentalities and not other bodies. Therefore, the learned Single Judge was not justified in directing regularisation of the services of respondents. We also agree with Shri V.K. Sharma that the learned Single Judge has seriously erred in relying upon the statement allegedly made by the counsel for the State on the entitlement of the respondents to be considered for regularisation in accordance with the instructions issued by the government and the judgment of the Supreme Court because it is an admitted position that State of Haryana was not a party in the writ petition and none had appeared on its behalf.

At this stage, Shri Jitender Sharma submitted that appellant No. 1 may be directed to frame a new policy for regularising the services of daily wage employees. In our opinion, the submission of the learned counsel cannot be accepted because the writ petitioners did not make any such prayer. However, keeping in view the fact that the writ petitioners have served under appellant No. 2 for 15 to 18 years, we consider it proper to remand the case to the single Bench for decision in this issue with liberty to the writ petitioners to seek amendment of the wril petition.

In the result, the appeal is allowed. Order of the Single Judge is set aside and the case is remanded to the Single Judge for decision on other issues. We also give liberty to the writ petitioners to seek amendment of the writ petition.