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The Punjab and Haryana High Court has set aside four policies introduced by the Haryana Government to regularise the services of more than 20,000 Group B, C and D employees i.e. those who were hired on contractual basis. The criterion for these employees was that they had a minimum of three years or 10 years in service on May 28, 2014 and the Government had issued three notifications to this effect on June 16, 18 and July 7 in 2014 and one on December 31, 2018.
The petition was filed by primarily two groups – the first consisting of those who were working on ad-hoc or daily-wage basis and wanted enforcement of said policies and the second consisted of those who feared that the enforcement of the policies would reduce their jobs. Another group of petitioners were concerned that the current M.L. Khattar Government had decided to implement these policies in the context of the upcoming 2019 elections.
Hearing arguments from all petitioners and examining the policies in-depth, Justices Rajesh Bindal and Anil Kshetarpal of the Bench stated that the policies were politically motivated, so as to influence voters in the then upcoming October elections. The petitioners emphasized that in State of Karnataka and others v. Umadevi and others, the Court had held a policy that had allowed regularisation of services of employees hired through the ‘back door’ unconstitutional. The current policies, which had been framed by Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s government, were struck down and the Court allowed for employees who had been appointed on ad hoc/contract/ work-charged/daily wages to continue for a period of six months, during which the Court ordered that the State to ensure that regular posts, wherever required, are advertised and these employees find suitable jobs. However, the Court allowed age-relaxation for the affected employees until the extent of period they had worked on an ad-hoc basis.
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