The Court dismissed a writ petition challenging the dismissal of an Original Application by the Central Administrative Tribunal regarding the denial of casual labour appointment due to administrative discontinuation and laches.
The writ petition was dismissed and connected miscellaneous cases were disposed of.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
W.P.(C) No. 11051 of 2008
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and learned counsel for the Railway-Union of India.
“2. The question to be answered is that whether the denial of appointment as casual labour to the Applicant is justifiable or not. The Applicant received call letter advised to appear in an interview and test for engaging him on casual basis in Khurda Road Division. The Applicant appeared in the test and interview. Thereafter, the Applicant was included in the select list of 159 casual labourers on 31.10.1996 as empanelled candidate. Thereafter, the Applicant was served with a letter advising the Applicant for appearing in the medical examination but unfortunately that advise for medical examination has not been received by the Applicant in time due to All India Postal Strike. Thereafter, the Applicant represented the matter with the Senior Divisional Personnel Officer, Khurda Road division, who advised the Applicant to submit an affidavit declaring the date of physical Test interview and detailed bio-
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data along with photo graph duly attested by a Gazetted Officer in support of his age and educational qualification. Such affidavit was also furnished before the Senior Divisional Personnel Officer, Khurda Road division. The required police verification was also received by the Authorities but as per the Screening Test result published who are recruited to be employed as Casual Labourers did not included the name of the Applicant. Hence the Applicant filed a representation to DRM (Annexure-A/12) dated 31.01.2001. To Annexure-A/12 no answer was given to the applicant, hence the Applicant filed representation to DRM (Annexure A/14) dated 08.08.2002. Annexure-A/14 representation was also not answered by the authorities till 23.08.06. However, as per Annexure-A/15 dated 23.08.2006, as an answer to appeal dated 07.08.2006 of the Applicant it is answered that engagement of casual labour in Railway has been dis-continued and the claim of the Applicant could not be allowed. Under the above circumstances the petitioner approached this Tribunal challenging Annexure A/15 with a prayer to quash the same and to give necessary direction to the Respondents to engage him as casual labour on the basis of the selection made on the test and interview.
4. Mr. Achintya Das, Ld. Counsel appearing for the Applicant and Mr. O.N. Ghosh, Ld. Counsel appearing for the Respondents contended before this Tribunal that only on the ground of delay or latches caused on the part of the Applicant his right to be appointed as casual labour should not be deprecated. The Applicant was so diligent to take steps to ventilate his grievance and it is only due to non receipt of call letter inviting for medical examination is for the reason of All India Postal strike and not any latches or negligence on the part of the Applicant. The Ld. Counsel also invited the attention of this Tribunal to two orders of this Tribunal, Annexure A/16 and
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A/17 by which two other similarly placed applicants were allowed to take up employment and if so the present Applicant is entitled to equal treatment. The Counsel also invited the attention of this Tribunal to the judgements of the Hon’ble Apex Court reported in State of Bihar and others v. Kamleshwar Prasad Singh and Another, 2001 (1) SLJ 76 (SC) and Madras Port Trust v. Hymanshu International (1979) 4 SCC 176. In the above two judgements the Hon’ble Apex Court had taken the stand that limitations should not stand in the way of giving substantial judgment to a clamant and the public authority shall not defeat just claim of citizens on technical ground of delay or latches.
5. This Tribunal also heard the entire contentions of the Counsel appearing for the Respondents and it is the stand of the Ld. Counsel that the case of the Applicant is entirely different from the facts and situations of the two earlier O.As disposed of by this Tribunal. In the above two O.As. the Applicants approached in time without any delay and this Tribunal considered their claim. The Counsel also invited the attention of this Tribunal the judgments of the Hon’ble Apex Court reported in 1997 SCC Volume-6 Page-538 in Jagdish Lal v. State of Haryana and (2007) SCC (L&S) in U.P. Jal Nigam and Another v. Jaswant Singh and Another. In the above two judgments the Hon’ble Apex Court considered the question of delay and latches and held that “if a person chose to sight over the matter and then wake up after the decision of the Court, then can such person stand to benefit” further in the 2nd case the Apex Court held in Paragraph six of the judgments as follows:-
“The question of delay and laches has been examined by this Court in a series of decisions and laches and delay has been considered to be an important factor in exercise of the discretionary relief under Article 226 of the
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Constitution. When a person who is not vigilant of his rights and acquiesces with the situation, can this writ petition be heard after a couple of years on the ground that same relief should be granted to him as was granted to person similarly situated who was vigilant about his rights and challenged his retirement which was said to be made on attaining the age of 58 years. A chart has been supplied to us in which it has been pointed out that about 9 writ petitions were filed by the employees of the Nigam before their retirement wherein their retirement was somewhere between 30.06.05 and 31.07.2005. Two writ petitions were filed wherein no relief of interim order was passed. They were granted interim order. Thereafter a spate of writ petitions followed in which employees who retired in the years 2001, 2002, 2003 & 2004 and 2005, woke up-to file writ petitions in 2005 and 2006 much after their retirement. Whether such persons should be granted the same relief or not?”
All connected Misc. Cases/I.As. if any, are accordingly disposed of.
.…….......……………… ( K.S. Jhaveri ) Chief Justice
…………………..……… ( P. Patnaik) Judge
MP
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the Order denying appointment as casual labour was justified.
Whether delay or laches barred the petitioner from seeking relief.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
State of Bihar and others v. Kamleshwar Prasad Singh and AnotherReferred¶10
State of Bihar and others v. Kamleshwar Prasad Singh and Another, 2001 (1) SLJ 76 (SC)
Madras Port Trust v. Hymanshu InternationalReferred¶10
Madras Port Trust v. Hymanshu International (1979) 4 SCC 176 · Who else cites this
Jagdish Lal v. State of HaryanaReferred¶12
U.P. Jal Nigam and Another v. Jaswant Singh and Another, (2007) SCC (L&S)Referred¶12
Petitioner
Railway-Union of India
K.S. Jhaveri
P. Patnaik
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
