HC dismisses petitions seeking regularization of 802 daily wagers in Ganderbal

Srinagar, Nov 5: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has dismissed two clubbed petitions filed by 802 daily-rated workers from Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district seeking regularization of their services under SRO 520 of 2017, observing that the claimants were not shown to have been engaged before the government’s ban on fresh appointments imposed in 2015.
The judgment, delivered by Justice Javed Iqbal Wani, came in WP(C) No. 1415/2023 and WP(C) No. 411/2024, titled Nazir Ahmad Bhat and others versus Union Territory of J&K and others. The petitioners had sought directions for inclusion of their names in official records for regularization, claiming long years of service as daily wagers in the Power Development Department’s Sub-Transmission Division (STD) Ganderbal.
The government counsel, however, submitted that the workers’ credentials were prepared after the recruitment ban, and hence their names were not forwarded for consideration. The administration produced an inquiry report of a committee headed by the Superintending Engineer, O&M Circle Ganderbal, which found that 128 persons, including the petitioners, did not exist on the official muster rolls and that their records had been manipulated post-ban.
The Court noted that the inquiry findings were never challenged by the petitioners and ruled that no legal or fundamental rights had been violated. “The respondents cannot be faulted or said to have infringed any rights of the petitioners,” Justice Wani observed while dismissing the petitions.
The private respondents in the case, who were already regularized, were represented by Advocate Tasaduq Hussain Reshi, while Government Advocate Faheem Shah appeared for the administration.
The Court upheld the government’s position that only those casual, need-based, and daily-rated workers engaged before the 2015 ban qualify for consideration under SRO 520. It concluded that the petitioners were not similarly placed with the 472 workers whose names had been duly verified and approved for regularization. [KNT]