Bharat Behera vs State Of Orissa Represented Through on 20 April, 2026

Author: Chittaranjan Dash

Bench: Chittaranjan Dash

IN THE HIGH COURT OF ORISSA AT CUTTACK

W.P(C). No.329 of 2012
&
WPC(OAC) No.1378 of 1994
In the matter of applications under Articles 226 & 227 of the
Constitution of India.
....
In W.P.(C) No.329/2012

1. Bharat Behera
2. Narendra Kumar Singh
3. Nimai Ch. Sahoo
4. Bhabani Sankar Jena
5. Bijaya Kumar Tripathy
6. Joginath Sahoo
7. Baikunthanath Nayak
8. Sk. Kaifayat .... Petitioners
-versus-

1. State of Orissa represented through
The Secretary to Government of
Orissa, Department of Commerce

2. Director, Printing, Stationary and
Publication, Orissa

3. Orissa Administrative Tribunal,
Cuttack Bench, Cuttack
.... Opp. Parties

In WPC (OAC) No.1378/1994
1. Bichitrananda Mallik
2. Rohita Kumar Sahoo
3. Dillip Kumar Mohanty
4. Bijay Kumar Behera
5. Narayan Dalai
6. Sampad Kumar Das
7. Satya Sobhan Padhi
8. Trilochan Nayak
9. Biren Kumar Behera
10. Sukadev Patra

Page 1 of 11
11. Sahadev Nayak
12. Basanta Kumar Panda
13. Sachidananda Sarangi
14. Harish Chandra Nayak
15. Anam Charan Behera
16. Bijaya Kumar Pradhan
17. Kailash Charan Barik (A)
18. Guna Pasayat
19. Sunil Kumar Khuntia
20. Bhakta Ranjan Bhuyan
21. Hrudananda Sahoo
22. Prafulla Kumar Panda
23. Mohini Mohan Biswal
24. Muralidhar Das
25. Kailash Ch. Barik (B)
26. Ramesh Chandra Swain
27. Narendra Nath Bhoi
28. Braja Kishore Behera
29. Narayan Chandra Sahoo
30. Umakanta Raut
31. Sanatan Sethi
32. Bindubhusan Majhi
33. Narasingh Sethi
34. Ashok Kumar Behera
35. Ballav Kr. Behera
36. Sukanta Kr. Sahoo
37. Giridhari Rout
38. Grouranga Sahoo
39. Jayashree Guruchand
40. Mohan Ch. Mahanta
41. Kalpataru Tarai
42. Dillip Kumar Pasayat
43. Bijaya Kishore Kandi
44. Laxmidhar Das
45. Rabindra Biswal
46. Dhaneswar Jena
47. Ashok Kumar Nayak
48. Hrudananda Nayak
49. Bauri Bandhu Adhikari
50. Dinabandhu Rout
51. Muralidhar Barik
52. Pravakar Pradhan

Page 2 of 11
53. Narendra Naik
54. Abhiram naik
55. Damodar Jena
56. Prabodha Kumar Dash
57. Alekha Kumar Nayak
58. Jayadev Mahallik
59. Ratnakar Dash
60. Bhaskar Bal
61. Akshaya Kumar Sahoo
62. Maheswar Nayak
63. Santosh Kumar Kar
64. Balakrushna Nayak
65. Panu Behera
66. Maguni Behera
67. Dhirendra Kumar Mishra
68. Santosh Kumar Mahanta
69. Rahim Bux Khan
70. Suman Barik
71. Akhil Kumar Das
72. Prafulla Chandra Das
73. Chandra Sekhar Swain
74. Gadadhar Modi
75. Laxmidhar Naik
76. Binod Bihari Kabat
77. Gopinath Deo
78. Bhaskar Behera
79. Baruna Naik
80. Madhusudan Samal
81. Prahallad Naik
82. Sk. Tohajud Hoda
83. Ranjan Kumar Routray
84. Sujit Prasad Ray
85. Biswanath Dalai
86. Raghunath Patnaik
87. Sunil Kumar Das
88. Md. Salim
89. Subash Chandra Behera
90. Santosh Kumar Sahoo
91. Ratan Kumar Patra
92. Kulamani Sahoo
93. Satyajit Das
94. Trilochan Patra .... Petitioners

Page 3 of 11
-versus-
1. State of Orissa, represented through
Secretary to Government of Orissa,
Department of Commerce

2. Director, Printing, Stationary and
.... Opp. Parties
Publication, Orissa

Advocates Appeared in this case
For Petitioner(s) - M/s. Gouri M. Rath, S.S. Padhy,
S. Jena, M.A. Bohidar,
P.Mohanty, B. Pattanaik &
S.Mohapatra
(In W.P.(C) No.392/2012 & WPC
(OAC) No.1378/1994)
For Opp. Parties - Mr. S.K. Jee, AGA in both cases
....
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE KRISHNA SHRIPAD DIXIT
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE CHITTARANJAN DASH
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date of Hearing & Judgment : 20.04.2026
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PER KRISHNA S. DIXIT,J.

The Director of Printing Stationery & Publication, Government of Odisha at Cuttack, being the appointing authority, had engaged services of 105 persons as casual labourers after conducting interview & presumably after ascertaining the eligibility and qualification during the period between 1992 and 1993, is not in dispute. The Director went forward and issued a set of five Regularization Orders in January & February, 1994. All the 105 employees were very happy. However, that happiness did not run longer and before the ink of these five orders had dried up, he passed a strange order of abeyance on 07.04.1994 suspending the regularization. Eventually, the status of these employees was restored as casual labourers, which led to ten of them approaching the Tribunal in

O.A. No.872 (C) of 1994 and securing an interim order dated 08.04.1994 keeping the impugned order of abeyance at a bay. Before this Court are two petitions, one W.P.(C) No.329 of 2012 and another W.P.C (OAC) No.1378 of 1994 which is transferred by the Tribunal.

2. As the luck would have it, the impugned order of abeyance itself came to be kept in abeyance by the Director vide order dated 11.04.1994 presumably under the shadow of interim order of the Tribunal. Subsequently, the Tribunal favoured the O.A. on 17.11.2011. Following is the operative portion of the order:

"After hearing both parties, it is apparent that the appointment of the applicants as Helpers being de hors of rules, i.e., in clear violation of the Orissa Government Press Industrial Employees Classification, Recruitment, Promotion, Conditions of service and Appeals Rules, 1978, and much beyond his sanctioned strength of helper, no case for their continuance as regular Helpers is made out as their appointment on regular basis as Helpers was clearly illegal. However, as the applicants have continued for long time by virtue of interim orders of this Tribunal, the respondents shall be at liberty to consider regular appointment of the applicants on the basis of further open recruitment tests as per Orissa Government Press Industries Employees Classification, Recruitment, Promotion, Conditions of Service and Appeal Rules, 1978 as and when such vacancies arise in future."

Apparently, the order has some sweet thing & some bitter and therefore, this petition has been filed for laying a challenge thereto.

3. Learned counsel for the Petitioners argues that the Tribunal, after examining the impugned abeyance order dated 07.04.1994, which had not contained any reasons in its womb, ought to have set it aside and left the matter to that level so that the regularization orders of 1992 & 1993 would stand revived; in support of this contention, he presses into service Apex Court decision in Mohinder Singh Gill v. Chief Election

Commission; AIR 1978 SC 851 and also Commissioner of Police, Bombay v. Gordhandas Bhanji, AIR 1952 SC 16 to the effect that the validity of order of a statutory authority has to be adjudged on the reasons contained within and that reasons cannot be supplied from without. He also lays his hands on the latest decision of Apex Court in Madan Singh v State of Haryana, 2026 LiveLaw (SC) 390, which having surveyed a part of the law relating to regularization beginning from Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi, AIR 2006 SC 1806 and ending with Jaggo v. Union of India, 2024 INSC 1034, has granted relief to the litigants therein. The short and long of his submission is that, Umadevi is not the final point of destination, law having marched much beyond through a catena of decisions and therefore, regardless of validity of the abeyance order, his clients are entitled to regularization, as was done in January & February, 1994. He also complains violation of the principles of natural justice.

4. Learned AGA representing the OPs, in his usual vehemence, resists the Petition, mainly, banking upon Umadevi and also Government letter dated 18.04.2026 to the effect that the Petitioners cannot be granted regularization, there being only 40 posts, the engagement extending to 105, which is now reduced to 104, one having been removed from service. He also puts across certain grounds, which would merit a little discussion infra.

5. Having heard learned counsel appearing for the parties and having perused the petition papers, we are inclined to grant relief to the Petitioners as under and for the following reasons:

5.1. So far as the fact matrix is concerned, the parties are not at issue.

There is agreement at the Bar as to 1992 and 1993 appointment of the Petitioners, as Casual Labourers, their regularization in January & February

1994 and abeyance of regularization vide order dated 07.04.1994. The same was challenged in OA No.872(C) of 1994, wherein the impugned abeyance order was put in challenge; there was an interim order dated 08.04.1994 keeping the abeyance order in abeyance. Pursuant to this, the Director passed another order dated 11.04.1994 himself, keeping the Abeyance Order in abeyance once for all. The Tribunal could have disposed off OA as having become infructuous, in view of this development and by treating it as having become infructuous. This it did not do, and that would constitute the first error apparent on the face of its judgment.

5.2. Counsel for the Petitioners is right in telling us that even when the examination of the validity of abeyance order was taken up, the Tribunal in view of decisions of Apex Court in Mohindra Singh Gill and Gordhandas supra should have simply set at naught the Abeyance Order dated 07.04.1994 and restored to the Petitioners, the status of regularized employees so that they could draw all salary admissible to the posts along with allowances. It was more so because the Director had not followed the principles of natural justice, which are treated as a part of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. This also the Tribunal did not do, and that would constitute the second error apparent on the face of the impugned judgment warranting our interference to set the injustice occasioned to the Petitioners at naught, which we do.

5.3. The stand of the OPs as emanating from the Counter dated 06.12.2013 and Additional Counters dated 15.12.2021, 25.04.2024 would instead of loosening the stand of Petitioners would adumbrate it, per contra. It is relevant to see the view of State, which is available at Paragraph-d of letter dated 11.04.2017 sent by Director, which is as under:

"There exist 174 vacancies as on 01.03.2017 and therefore, Government in a welfare state as a model employer should take a

broad view of their legitimate expectation and regularize their services after 23 years of continuous, satisfactory and dedicated work. These are people who joined much prior to the Umadevi judgment and therefore, should be considered in the context of their own peculiarity. The Umadevi judgment should not be retrospectively applied to nullify Rule 18(iv). In natural course, they would have been considered for regularization after completing 240 days of employment as causal worker under Rule 18(iv) as and when vacancies arise and there existed vacancies since a long time back."

This very stand would take the case of OPs miles away from Umadevi.

5.4. The contention of learned AGA-Mr. Jee that the 174 vacancies spoken up above is from 01.03.2017 and therefore, there could not have been January, February, 1994 regularization order would not come to his rescue because of the evolving regularization jurisprudence from Umadevi to State of Karnataka v. M.L. Kesari, (2010) 9 SCC 247 to Jaggo then culminating into Madan Singh supra. In the last decision, what the Apex Court has observed merits reproduction:

"It is the specific stand of the State Government that even after excluding the ad hoc employees from Group 'B', 'C' and 'D', who seek benefit of these two Notifications, none of the posts advertised would be affected. Further, it is informed that such appointees have now gained sufficient experience and are likely to have settled in life with the passage of time. It is true that when the challenge was pending before the High Court, by an interim order dated 02.09.2016 it was directed that orders of regularisation if passed would be subject to the final outcome of the said proceedings. When the present proceedings were pending in this Court, an interim order directing status quo to be maintained was passed in SLP(C) No.31566 of 2018 on 26.11.2018. It is, thus, clear that these ad hoc employees continued in service and their services are being still utilized by the State of Haryana."

5.5. The Director at paragraphs-c & d of letter dated 11.04.2017, has said as under:

"(C) Though termed 'casual worker', they have worked like regular employees in skilled jobs. They are engaged in production wing and perform the same work as regular employees and their performance has been satisfactory. So, they deserve equal treatment in terms of pay and perks.

(D) There exist 174 vacancies as on 01.03.2017 and therefore, Government in a welfare state as a model employer should take a broad view of their legitimate expectation and regularize their services after 23 years of continuous, satisfactory and dedicated work. These are people who joined much prior to the Umadevi judgment and therefore, should be considered in the context of their own peculiarity. The Umadevi judgment should not be retrospectively applied to nullify Rule 18(iv). In natural course, they would have been considered for regularization after completing 240 days of employment as causal worker under Rule 18(iv) as and when vacancies arise and there existed vacancies since a long time back."

This Court, in its interim order dated 16.04.2024, having adverted to stand of the Government, as expressed in the letter and also the affidavit following it, said at Para-4, as under:

"4.Fact remains, if the vacancies are available and the petitioners have been rendering service for more than 30 years, their appointment may be illegal, their services can be regularized. At this stage, learned Advocate General, Odisha seeks time to sort out the case at his level and convince the Government for regularization of services of petitioners"

The letter dated 18.04.2026 is nothing but a substantial replica of the stand mentioned above and therefore, it is liable to be consigned to the footnote.

5.6. To put it succinctly, when eligible and qualified persons, on facing a selection process may be interviewed or otherwise have been engaged and their sweat is extracted with no complaint whatsoever for quite long, it is not open to Article 12 entities to contend that these persons were illegally engaged and; there were no existing vacancies nor the posts. The very Counter itself says that there has been a perennial requirement of services

of all these persons. Ours being a Welfare State in the light of Bhupendra Nath Hazarika v. State of Assam, AIR 2013 SC 234, the Authorities cannot act like East India Company of the bygone era. All its action should be animated with human values like dignity & compassion, to say the least. Neither the stand of Government nor the impugned order of Tribunal reflects this. Therefore, they need to be quashed with costs, so that the officials will wake up from the slumber of their colonial mindset and learn to treat the citizens with dignity, and not as slaves.

5.7. We are told at the Bar that out of 105 persons, who gained entry as Casual Labourers, 57 have demitted office on attaining the age of superannuation, and 21 are dead and gone. One is removed and therefore, he being not before the Court, we will not say anything about him. Presently, 26 persons are working. All these persons have to be extended the benefit of regularization orders made in set of 5 in January & February, 1994 and further financial benefits have to be extended to them after reaching to them or their LRs wherever they be.

In the above circumstances, these petitions succeed; a Writ of Certiorari issues quashing the impugned order of the Tribunal and also the Director's Abeyance Order dated 07.04.1994 with following directions:

(i) All the 104 employees including the Petitioners herein shall be treated as having been regularized w.e.f. January & February 1994 in terms of respective 5 orders and accordingly all service and monetary benefits shall be extended to these people.

(ii) In respect all those who are dead and gone or who have already retired, the Government and the Director shall undertake the search of LRs and remit the financial benefit to

their bank accounts within three months and report compliance to the Registrar General of this Court.

(iii) Default or delay shall carry interest at the rate of 1% for the first one month, and 2% for the months next following, which may be recovered from the erring officials of the Government.

(iv) The OPs shall collectively pay a cost of Rs.5,000/-

(Rupees Five Thousand) only to each of the Petitioners within an outer limit of three months. However, this cost shall automatically stand waived should the above directions be complied with and compliance report is filed before the Registrar General of this Court within the period, as mentioned above.

Web copy of judgment to be acted upon by all concerned.

(Krishna Shripad Dixit) Judge

(Chittaranjan Dash) Judge

Digitally Signed Orissa thHigh Court, Cuttack The 20 day Signed by: MADHUSMITA of April 2026 /Madhusmita MALLICK Designation: Jr. Stenographer Reason: Authentication Location: HIGH COURT OF ORISSA, CUTTACK Date: 24-Apr-2026 15:36:31