Isabella Mariam

The High Court of Bombay, Single Bench of Justice Milind N. Jadhav held that financial limitations or the inability to create permanent posts cannot justify keeping employees engaged on temporary or contractual terms when they perform permanent and essential functions. In a case concerning four daily-wage drivers and firemen of the Malegaon Municipal Corporation, the Court found that their continued employment on short-term contracts amounted to unfair labour practice and violated constitutional guarantees of equality and dignity in work. The Court set aside the Industrial Court’s orders and the subsequent termination of the employees, directing their reinstatement with continuity in service, payment of back wages, and conferment of permanency benefits from the date of the judgment.

The four writ petitions were filed by Pradip Ramesh Shinde, Bhushan Suresh Thakre, Sunil Ananda Bagul, and Sheikh Javid Sheikh Rashid, who were employed as drivers and firemen by the Malegaon Municipal Corporation. Their appointments, made between February and April 2017, were on daily wages initially fixed at Rs.7,000 per month and later increased to Rs.8,000 per month. Each appointment was renewed intermittently every six months, creating what the Court later described as "artificial breaks on paper." The petitioners continued in uninterrupted service until July 2025, when their employment was terminated while their writ petitions were pending.

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The petitioners had filed complaints under Section 28 read with Items 6, 9, and 10 of Schedule IV of the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act, 1971, seeking permanency in service. The Industrial Court initially granted interim protection in 2019 but dismissed the main complaints in May 2025. The petitioners argued that their continuous service for over nine years in essential posts justified regularization. The corporation, however, contended that it was constrained by a 2016 government resolution limiting establishment expenditure to 35% of annual revenue and claimed that the current expenditure exceeded 49%. It asserted that under such conditions, it was powerless to make fresh appointments or grant permanency.

Justice Jadhav recorded that “law, in its finest expression, is not a rigid instrument but a compassionate force that must respond to the human condition.” Referring to a recent judgment of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Harbhan Singh & Ors. v. Bhakra Beas Management Board, he stated that “equity must not be a casualty in the hands of executive convenience,” adding that the petitioners were not “faceless names in a file but human beings who have served a public institution with diligence and dignity.”

The Court found that the petitioners had worked continuously since 2016–17, performing essential duties in the fire brigade alongside permanent employees. “They have given the best years of their life in the service of the Corporation,” the judge noted, holding that there had been no break in service other than artificial renewals every six months. Justice Jadhav rejected the corporation’s justification that financial constraints prevented it from granting permanency, stating, “Such a condition in a government resolution cannot be a yardstick for depriving the benefit of permanent status to workmen.”

He further observed that the corporation’s selective treatment of safai kamgars as an exempted category, while excluding firemen and drivers, amounted to discrimination. The Court noted that even according to the corporation’s own staffing proposal of 2014, 1,247 new posts had been sanctioned under a 2016 resolution, against which the petitioners’ appointments had been made. Therefore, “on the ground of non-availability of sanctioned posts, the case of the Corporation cannot be accepted.”

Citing Conservator of Forests v. Savala Dhondiba Pise, Justice Jadhav held that denying permanency to workers who had completed 240 days of service over several years amounted to an unfair labour practice. The Court relied extensively on the Supreme Court’s decision in Dharam Singh & Ors. v. State of U.P. & Anr. (2025), quoting its finding that “refusal to sanction posts cannot be immune from judicial scrutiny for arbitrariness.” Justice Jadhav stated that “long-term extraction of regular labour under temporary labels corrodes confidence in public administration and offends the promise of equal protection.”

He concluded that the corporation’s plea of helplessness was untenable, remarking that “if this reasoning were accepted, it would amount to enslavement of the petitioners as bonded labourers.” The Court recorded that public institutions cannot justify indefinite temporary engagements under the guise of fiscal limits, stating that “financial stringency is not a talisman that overrides fairness, reason, and the duty to organize work on lawful lines.”

Justice Milind N. Jadhav quashed and set aside the Industrial Court’s judgments dated May 6, 2025, which had dismissed the four petitioners’ unfair labour practice complaints. The High Court also quashed the termination orders issued by the Malegaon Municipal Corporation on July 2, 2025, terming them “unsustainable in law.” The Court directed the corporation to reinstate all four petitioners “forthwith and in any event within a period of one week from today in the same posts in which they were employed at the time of their termination.”

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“Petitioners shall be entitled to continuity in service and shall also be entitled to back wages for the period from 02.07.2025 until they are reinstated and all benefits of permanency from the date of this judgment onwards.”

In setting aside the corporation’s justification based on the 35% expenditure ceiling, the Court stated that such financial restrictions could not override statutory and constitutional obligations. “Sensitivity to the human consequences of prolonged insecurity is not sentimentality, but a constitutional discipline.”

Advocates Representing the Parties
For the Petitioners: Ms. Pavitra Manesh, Advocate.
For the Respondents: Mr. S.S. Patwardhan, Advocate, for Malegaon Municipal Corporation.

Case Title: Pradip Ramesh Shinde v. Malegaon Municipal Corporation & Ors. (With connected petitions)
Neutral Citation: 2025: BHC-AS:41412
Case Number: Writ Petition No. 7949 of 2025 (with group petitions)
Bench: Justice Milind N. Jadhav