A division bench of the Punjab and Haryana high court has set aside directions from a single bench that ordered regularisation of services of drivers in different municipal corporations in Punjab without checking work and conduct of the employees.
The court ruled that the services of employees can only be regularised if their work and conduct have been good during that tenure. The single judge bench observed that the extended ad hocism of keeping daily wage workers or contractual employees on temporary rolls for decades while extracting regular work is not only unconstitutional but undermines equality and dignity. The court observed while passing the order of regularisation that the employer can’t say that there is no post available for regularisation or they were working on part time basis, as the issue has already been considered and rejected by the Supreme Court.
The high court bench modified the September 2025 order to the extent that there will be no deemed regularisation. It said that the employees, who have completed more than 10 years of service as of now will be considered for regularisation and the said benefit will not be denied either on the ground that the initial appointment was not as per procedure or the drivers did not possess the relevant qualification at the relevant time. The court was hearing a bunch of appeals from different municipal corporations from Punjab assailing the September 2025 order of a single bench in which drivers with two to three decades of services had sought regularisation of their services.
It had directed that petitioners be regularised and if no order of regularisation is passed within the stipulated period, they would be deemed to be regularised According to one of the counsels for the MCs, Abhilaksh Gaind, the MCs’ argument was that deemed regularisation has been given by the single judge bench even without noticing as to whether the record of any of the respondents is good enough to regularise or not.
