The Orissa High Court has quashed an order denying regularisation to a long-serving laboratory attendant at Shailabala Women’s Autonomous College, directing the Odisha Higher Education Department to reconsider his claim within three months.
Delivering the ruling on September 7, Justice Murahari Sri Raman criticized the prolonged uncertainty faced by contractual staff. The court observed that keeping an employee in perpetual job insecurity through unresponsive indifference amounts to exploitation, comparing the unresolved employment status to a sword of Damocles hanging over the worker.
The decision came on a petition filed by Santosh Kumar Patra, who challenged the state government’s August 9, 2019 rejection of his regularisation plea.
Two Decades Of Uninterrupted Service
Patra stated that his engagement at the Cuttack institution began on December 1, 2000, while official college documentation established his tenure from September 1, 2005, when he was hired as a peon at a daily wage of Rs 70. He was elevated to the post of attendant in 2007 and was designated as a contractual laboratory attendant in 2010.
Beyond laboratory work, Patra handled administrative responsibilities in admissions and examinations. His appointment was repeatedly extended over the years without objection. Basing its assessment on the official records from 2005, the court noted that he had accumulated more than 21 years of continuous service with an unblemished record.
Patra first sought regularisation in April 2017. Following an order by the Odisha Administrative Tribunal in January 2018 directing officials to review his petition, the Higher Education Department turned down the request in August 2019.
State Objections Overturned By The Court
In denying his plea, authorities had argued that Patra was merely a temporary worker funded through self-financing courses and could not be compared to another contractual employee, Anama Charan Nayak, who was hired in 1988 and subsequently regularised. The administration further cited reservation criteria introduced under government resolutions in 2013 and 2014.
The High Court rejected the state’s arguments, describing the grounds of rejection as unsustainable. Justice Raman noted that the reservation guidelines introduced in 2013 and 2014 did not exist when Patra was engaged, emphasizing that compliance with applicable recruitment policies was the responsibility of the college at the time of appointment.
The court ruled that authorities could not cite subsequent regulations to block a regularisation request after repeatedly renewing an employee’s service across two decades. It also held that Patra met the required qualifications and could not be differentiated from Nayak based on minor technicalities, setting aside the 2019 rejection order and mandating a fresh administrative decision within the three-month window.
