Same message from two different judgements

The Supreme Court and the State High Court have issued two judgments with different but similar concepts. The Supreme Court's order is to reinstate and make permanent the dismissed daily wage garden attendants from the Uttar Pradesh Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation. The High Court ruled that an employee should not be dismissed for concealing trivial cases. In both cases, the court emphasized humanitarian considerations over legal regulations. In the case of daily wage labourers, the dismissal of long-term workers on the ground that they are temporary is tantamount to exploitation, opined a bench consisting of Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B. Varale.

The court observed it was morally wrong to dismiss those who have been employed by the municipality for all these years, even in the absence of a fair contract. Revoking the Allahabad High Court ruling that they should be reinstated on the daily wage system, the apex court ruled that they should be reinstated permanently and should be paid 50 per cent of their wages from the date of dismissal to the date of reinstatement.

With this, the gardeners in the Horticulture Department of Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation, working since 1998, finally got justice from the Supreme Court. They had approached the Labor Department in 2004 for permanent appointment. With this, most of them were dismissed in July 2005. They approached the Labor Court and the High Court.

The High Court ordered the reinstatement of the workers, but only temporarily much like the old way. The corporation and the workers then approached the Supreme Court for respite from the High Court decision.

The act of ousting a temporary worker on one fine morning, who worked tirelessly over the years without the benefit enjoyed by regular employees, is ruthless and discourteous. When a person stays in a job for a long time, the survival of his family also depends on the income from that job. This judgment should be taken as a lesson by every organization that decides to lay off long-standing employees in a sudden.

High Court Judge Justice DK Singh has ordered a review of the dismissal of a Central Service officer for concealing the fact that he was accused in two criminal cases when he joined the service. There were two cases registered against him during his college days. The High Court considered that non-disclosure of minor cases is not a sufficient reason for dismissal.

These days, we know how tortuous it is to land a job with the central government. So it is nothing but unmannerly to fire employees citing trivial details.