Allahabad High Court grants deceased UP employee regularisation rights
The Allahabad High Court has directed Uttar Pradesh government authorities to treat a deceased work-charge employee of the Rural Engineering Department as regularised from the
The Allahabad High Court has directed Uttar Pradesh government authorities to treat a deceased work-charge employee of the Rural Engineering Department as regularised from the date he became eligible, saying his death could not end his accrued right to be considered for regularisation. The court also asked the authorities to consider his son’s claim for compassionate appointment under the Uttar Pradesh Recruitment of Dependants of Government Servants Dying in Harness Rules, 1974. Read Full Story Justice Indrajeet Shukla of the Lucknow bench, while allowing a writ petition filed by Hasan Ahmad on Friday, said the exercise must be completed within two months of the production of a certified copy of the order.
The court also described the conduct of the authorities as "e facie contemptuous" and awarded Rs 50,000 as costs to the petitioner. The petition said Ahmad’s father, Rifakat Hussain, was engaged as a junior assistant in the work-charge establishment of the Rural Engineering Department in Hardoi on November 1, 1985. He died on August 11, 2012 after serving the department for over 18 years. His name was listed at serial number 58 in a seniority list prepared for regularisation in 2005. The court noted that 172 Group-C posts had been sanctioned in 2012 for the regularisation of daily-wage, work-charge and court-case employees.
However, Hussain died before the process could be completed, while other similarly placed employees were regularised. The bench said the authorities had repeatedly rejected the claim despite earlier court directions, and observed that the impugned order dated March 17, 2023 had been passed in defiance of an earlier binding direction. The court held that the right to consideration for regularisation, once accrued, does not disappear merely because the employee dies before the process is completed, and that such a right can survive through legal representatives. It directed that its order be communicated to the secretary of the Rural Engineering Department and the department’s director and chief engineer, while reiterating that the petitioner had been forced into prolonged litigation because of repeated non-compliance by the authorities.
In sum, the court ruled that Hussain must be treated as regularised from the date he became eligible, ordered consideration of his son’s claim for compassionate appointment, and asked the authorities to complete the process within two months. Ends
The BriefWire