Supreme Court Orders Regular Jobs for UP Daily Wagers: No More Denial Due to Budget Excuses

The Supreme Court on August 19, 2025, held that financial constraints cannot be used as a talisman to deny regular employment to workers performing perennial functions in government departments, and directed the State of Uttar Pradesh to regularise long-serving daily wagers of the U.P. Higher Education Services Commission.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta ordered that the appellants be regularised with effect from April 24, 2002, by creation of supernumerary posts, and paid arrears representing the difference between regular pay and what they actually received from 2002 until their regularisation, retirement or death.

The Court further directed recalculation of pension and terminal dues for retired employees, compensation to the legal heirs of deceased employees, and mandated the State to file a sworn compliance affidavit within four months.

The case concerned Dharam Singh and others, engaged between 1989 and 1992 as daily wage employees of the Commission. Despite discharging permanent functions for decades, they were paid a meagre Rs.1,500–2,000 per month and denied regular status.

The Allahabad High Court, both in its single judge decision in 2009 and division bench ruling in 2017, dismissed their plea citing lack of rules for regularisation and absence of vacancies, relying heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2006 judgment in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi.

The Top court, however, found this approach to be a misdirection.

“The controversy before us is not about rewarding irregular employment. It is about whether years of ad hoc engagement, defended by shifting excuses and pleas of financial strain, can be used to deny the rights of those who have kept public institutions running. We resolve it by insisting that public employment should be organised with fairness, reasoned decision-making, and respect for the dignity of work,” the bench categorically noted.

The Court stressed that the State, as a “constitutional employer,” could not balance budgets “on the backs of those who perform the most basic and recurring public functions.”

Where duties recur daily and continuously, establishments must reflect this reality in sanctioned strength, it said, warning that the long-term extraction of regular labour under temporary labels corrodes confidence in public administration and offends the promise of equal protection.

A key point in the judgment was the Court’s treatment of Umadevi. The bench noted that the High Court had erred in mechanically applying Umadevi to reject the workers’ claims. Unlike in Umadevi, where illegal and backdoor appointments were under scrutiny, the present case concerned workers who had been continuously engaged for decades, with the Commission itself acknowledging the need for their services and repeatedly requesting the sanction of posts. To apply Umadevi as a blanket bar, the Court said, was to distort its reasoning and perpetuate exploitation.

The Court fortified its analysis by invoking its recent precedents in Jaggo v. Union of India (2024) and Shripal v. Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad (2025).

Both decisions, it recalled, cautioned that public institutions could not hide behind “ad hocism” or outsourcing to avoid their obligations as constitutional employers.

They underscored that when the nature of work is permanent and recurring, indefinite daily-wage or contractual arrangements are a form of exploitation inconsistent with Articles 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution.

The present case, the bench said, stood as a clear example of how long-term precarious employment corrodes both worker dignity and public trust.

The Top Court quashed the State’s refusals in 1999 and 2003 to sanction posts, calling them arbitrary and discriminatory in light of evidence of vacancies and comparable regularisations. It found that the High Court had failed to examine the arbitrariness of these refusals, reducing the matter instead to a sterile question of rules and vacancies. 

Noting that earlier directions in similar matters had often been met with “technicalities, rolling reconsiderations and administrative drift,” the judges underscored that justice required “clear duties, fixed timelines and verifiable compliance.”

Delay in implementing such obligations, they said, was “not mere negligence but a conscious method of denial that erodes livelihoods and dignity.”

Concluding, the Court reaffirmed that fairness in engagement and transparency in administration are not matters of governmental grace but constitutional obligations. “Sensitivity to the human consequences of prolonged insecurity is not sentimentality. It is a constitutional discipline,” the bench reminded, holding that the State must implement its obligations in letter and spirit.

Case Title: Dharam Singh & Ors v. State of Uttar Pradesh & Anr

Date of Judgment: August 19, 2025

Bench: Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta