‘State Cannot Exploit Labour’: SC Allows Regularisation of Long-Serving Goa PWD Workers

The Supreme Court has held that the constitutional requirement of equality in public employment under Articles 14 and 16 does not prevent the State from framing a scheme to regularise long-serving temporary employees.

A Bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh said the State cannot mechanically rely on earlier precedents to deny regularisation to workers who have rendered perennial service, particularly where their engagement was not purely illegal.

Court said such an approach would be contrary to the principle that the State must act as a model employer.

The judgment came on an appeal filed by Rupesh N Goankar and others against a July 28, 2023 judgment of the Bombay High Court at Goa, which had declined to give effect to a 2014 order granting the workers temporary status and recognising their entitlement to absorption in the Public Works Department (PWD) as vacancies arose.

Why did the Supreme Court allow regularisation of the workers?

The workers were members of the PWD Labour Supply Society, a body constituted by the State itself and headed by the Principal Chief Engineer, PWD. The Society was created to end the exploitation of contract labour engaged in the PWD and ensure eventual regularisation of their services.

The workers had been engaged between 1967 and 2003 and had continued to perform perennial functions of the State for several years.

Court said their engagement through the Society did not sever their relationship with the State, particularly as the Society was headed by State officials and created to fulfil specific government requirements.

"The mere fact that workers are channeled through a state-sponsored society does not sever their relationship with the state where the society is headed by state officials and established to fulfill state-specific work requirements," the Bench said.

How did the State's regularisation process unfold?

On July 27, 2012, the office of the Chief Minister resolved to formulate a policy for absorbing members of the Society.

A proposal approved by the Finance Department and the Chief Minister on September 4, 2013, recommended, among other things, a freeze on direct recruitment in the PWD until the Society's members were regularised and absorbed.

Despite this, the Principal Chief Engineer issued an advertisement on September 6, 2013, inviting applications for direct recruitment to certain PWD posts.

On December 4, 2013, a proposal to grant "temporary status" to 1,399 Society members who had completed eight years of service as on April 1, 2013, was approved by the PWD Minister and the Chief Minister.

On February 7, 2014, the Principal Chief Engineer, PWD/Additional Secretary to the Government, issued an order stating that the Government had sanctioned temporary status for the Society members. It also recognised their entitlement to absorption in PWD establishments as vacancies arose.

However, the State later issued fresh recruitment advertisements in October and December 2014 without referring to the workers' pending claims for absorption.

Could the State later withdraw from its commitment?

The Supreme Court said the State could not rely on its own procedural deficiencies to defeat the workers' legitimate expectation.

During earlier proceedings, the Advocate General had submitted before the high court that the workers would be entitled to absorption in PWD establishments against vacancies in terms of the February 7, 2014 order.

The State later argued that the order lacked the requisite government sanction, that the workers were members of a society and not government employees, and that there were no sanctioned posts against which they could be absorbed. It also relied on the Supreme Court's judgment in State of Karnataka v Umadevi (3) (2006).

Referring to Article 166 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court said that once an executive order had been acted upon and placed before a constitutional court, the State could not subsequently rely on internal procedural infirmities or lack of formal concurrence to invalidate its own commitments.

"Such a practice is inconsistent with the state's obligation to act fairly and uniformly," the Bench said.

Court also rejected the State's argument that the Advocate General's earlier concession could simply be brushed aside.

What did the Supreme Court say about Umadevi?

The Bench held that the State could not mechanically invoke Umadevi to deny the workers relief.

It rejected the argument that regularisation would open the floodgates to similar claims by contractual workers across the State. Court noted that the relief was being confined to the appellants and was not being extended as a general policy to other workers.

Court also held that the workers' engagement was not an illegal "backdoor entry".

"The appellants' engagement was not the product of a clandestine or illegal backdoor entry; it was the outcome of a structured process, constitution of a Society by the State, a Cabinet-approved categorisation exercise, and the grant of temporary status undertaken by the State itself," the Bench said.

Why was the workers' long service important?

Court noted that the workers were predominantly from unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled categories and had rendered long and continuous service, with several working for well over 15 years and some for decades.

It said they could not realistically be expected to compete afresh in an open selection process at this stage of their working lives.

"To deny regularisation to such workers, after having taken the benefit of their labour for so long, is itself symptomatic of the very exploitation that the Society was constituted to prevent," the Bench said.

Allowing the appeal, the Supreme Court held that the appellants had made out a case for regularisation in the PWD, Government of Goa.

It directed that their services be regularised with effect from February 9, 2021, the date of institution of the writ petition, within four months.

Case Title: Rupesh N Goankar & Ors Vs State of Goa & Ors

Bench: Justices Sanjay Karol and N Kotiswar Singh

Date of Judgment: August 4, 2026