State of Himachal Pradesh vs Shri Ram Asra

Justice Deepak Gupta, J.—The respondent has not appeared despite service. By means of this review petition, the State has prayed that the judgment of this Court, dated 6th January, 2010, may be recalled and modified. It is stated that the respondent had worked in different capacities, i.e. Mate, Chowkidar and Beldar, right from his initial appointment in the year 1981 till 31.12.1993. He did not continuously work as Mate and after 1990, he worked only as Beldar.

This Court in Gauri Dutt and others versus State of H.P., Latest HLJ 2008 (HP) 366, considered the following question:

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Where if an employee has rendered service on daily waged basis on 2 separate posts in lower and higher scales, can the employee be given benefit of the service rendered by him in the lower scale and be regularised in the higher scale by combining the two services after 10 years?

This question was answered by this Court in the following terms:

After considering all the pros and cons and keeping in view the fact that various anomalous situations may arise we are of the considered view that when an employee completes 10 years of continuous service combined in two scales, an option should be given to the employee to either accept work charge status in the lower scale or he may continue to work on daily rated basis in the higher scale and claim work charge status in the higher scale on completion of 10 years of continuous service in the said scale. In the examples given above employee (A) beldar because otherwise he may have to wait for 9 years before he is granted work charge status. On the other hand, employee (B) in the second example may prefer to delay the grant of work charge status by one year so that he can get work charge status in the higher scale. We feel that in each case the choice should be left to the employee. However, if the employee on being given a change to exercise his option does not convey his option within 30 days, he shall be granted work charge status in the lower scale by combining the service rendered in both the scale. This answers the fourth question.

It appears that when the writ petition was decided, this Court proceeded on the assumption that the employee had worked only on one post. Thus, there is an error apparent on the fact of the record. Hence, the earlier judgment in CWP No. 2242 of 2007, dated 6th January, 2010, is recalled. Since, the employee has worked on two posts, he shall be regularized in accordance with the directions given in para 20 of Gauri Dutt''s case reproduced hereinabove. In view of the above discussion, the review petition is allowed and the judgment rendered in CWP No. 2242 of 2007 is modified accordingly.