State of Hp and Others Vs Jeevan Lal

2025:HHC:18539

IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA

LPA No.299 of 2025 Decided on: 17.06.2025

__________________________________________________________ The State of Himachal Pradesh and others .....Appellants Versus Jeevan Lal ……Respondent Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vivek Singh Thakur, Judge Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ranjan Sharma, Judge

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1 Whether approved for reporting?

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For the appellants:	Mr. Advo	Gobind cate Gen	Ko eral.	rla,	Additional
For the respondent:	Mr. Advo	Manoha cate.	r	Lal	Sharma,

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Vivek Singh Thakur, Judge [Oral]

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The challenge in the present Letters Patent

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Appeal is to the order of learned Single Judge, passed in CWP No.5853 of 2024 on 17.09.2024.

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2. Learned Single Judge has directed the regularization of the employee as per the Policy of the State Government dated 28.03.2022 from the due date with all consequential benefits, while restricting the monetary benefits to three years from the date of filing of the writ petition.

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3. The reliance has also been placed upon the

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earlier order passed by learned Single Judge in CWP

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1 Whether reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment?

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2025:HHC:18539

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No.789 of 2024 on 04.07.2024.

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4. The perusal of the writ record would go on to show that the claim for regularization of the writ petitioner was sought on account of his having completed over requisite 240 working days in each calendar year from 01.01.2017 onwards, with the Forest Department and, therefore, the claim of the writ petitioner was for regularization as per the Policy dated 28.03.2022, Annexure P-2, attached to the writ petition.

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5. The defence as such of the State was that the writ petitioner was bill based worker and was not a daily wager as such.

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6. The learned Single Judge rejected the said argument that it was a mainly artificial distinction, which has been created by the Department to a daily wager as a bill based worker; and that the work which has been taken from the writ petitioner by the Department was only of daily wager and now the new nomenclature has been fixed as daily wage basis.

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7. The said earlier decision of learned Single Judge has already been upheld by us in LPA No.60 of 2025, titled as State of H.P. vs. Ram Singh,

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decided on 27.02.2025. The relevant part of the said

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judgment, reads as under:-

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“3. The argument raised before learned Single Judge, which has now also been repeated, is that the employee, as such, had been appointed on “bill basis” and not on “daily wage basis” and, therefore, the policy dated 22.04.2020 was not applicable in this case.

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4. Learned Single Judge found that there was no intelligible differentia between a “daily wage worker” and 4 “bill basis worker”, as such, and the benefit could not be denied in accordance with law on the basis of nomenclature and therefore, directed consideration, as noticed above, if the employee fulfilled the criteria of the regularization made in Annexure P-8.

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5. It is not the case of the State that the policy of regularization is not applicable in this case and the only distinction sought to be made out is that the employment is on “bill basis” and therefore, the employee is not a daily wager who would be covered under the policy in question. The nomenclature as such, which has been given apparently by the State is on account of fertile imagination of the Department. Nothing was placed on record before the learned Single Judge to show that the nomenclature as such, which had been given of “bill basis” and that raising of a bill for a specific work as such, which might keep the employer out of the policy. The only document which was appended with the written statement as such, was a letter from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest to the Department that certain employees as such had worked on “bill basis” and thus were not covered under the policy of regularization in view of the services provided. The written statement is silent about the nature of work which was done and whether it was for a specific purpose, which would have consumed the whole day or not and for which a bill might have been raised. Thus, the nomenclature which has been given by the Department, would not as such absolve it from the applicability of policy of the State to deny the benefit of regularization.

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6. The learned Single Judge had noticed that the employment is from the year 2015 which was the categorical case in the writ petition and that the petitioner had completed 240 days in each calendar

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w.e.f. 01.01.2015 and appended the necessary mandays chart, regularization policy and a representation given on 01.12.2023. It would go on to show that communication dated 21.02.2021 regarding the appellant along with ten other daily wage workers for regularization was sent to the Chief Conservator of Forest, as per the regularization policy, but no action had been taken.

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7. In such circumstances, the writ petition has been filed and there is no denial of the fact that the matter had been forwarded by the Chief Conservator of Forest and it is only a general denial that the claim is not tenable in view of the nomenclature. No material worth any substance was placed before the learned Single Judge, as noticed above, regarding the particular type of work for which the petitioner was appointed by the Department and whether the said work was not similar to that of the daily wager.

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8. In such circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that the distinction which is sought to be carved out by the State is without any justification or in the absence of any documentation placed on record. Therefore, the learned Single Judge has rightly directed consideration as per the policy of the State itself being recognized by the State to give the benefit of regularization being a welfare State which now cannot wriggle out from its own policy by resorting to this frivolous litigation.

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9. Accordingly, we find no merit in the present appeal, the same is dismissed alongwith pending application(s), if any.”

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8. Nothing could be brought to our notice that

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whether the bill was raised for a specific work and the employee was only asked to do certain type of work for certain days only and he was not a daily wager. He was working continuously with the appellant-Department and the regularization has thus been ordered on the basis of a Policy of the State Government itself. Therefore, we are of the considered opinion that there

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is no reason as such to take a different view, we have

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already taken.

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9. Identical Letters Patent Appeals, i.e. LPA bearing No.60 of 2025, titled as State of Himachal Pradesh Versus Ram Singh, decided on 27.02.2025 and LPA No.251 of 2025, titled as State of H.P. & Ors. Versus Mohar Singh, decided on 23.05.2025, have also been dismissed by this Court.

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10. Resultantly, the appeal is dismissed.

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Pending miscellaneous application(s), if any, shall also stand disposed of.

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(Vivek Singh Thakur) Judge

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(Ranjan Sharma)

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Judge

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June 17, 2025 [Bhardwaj]

State of Hp and Others v. Jeevan Lal

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State of Hp and Others v. Jeevan Lal

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