IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH AT SHIMLA CWP No.6983 of 2022 Decided on 22th April 2026 Joginder Singh and others …Petitioners Versus State of Himachal Pradesh and others …Respondents Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge 1Whether approved for reporting? Yes For the petitioners: Ms. Anjali Soni Verma, Advocate. For the respondents: Mr. Pushpinder Jaswal, Additional Advocate General. Ajay Mohan Goel, Judge (Oral) By way of this writ petition, the petitioners have, inter alia, prayed for the following reliefs:- “i. That the office order dated 01.03.2016 contained in Annexure P-4 whereby the claim of the petitioner for grant of pay scale of Rs.800- 1455 revised to Rs.2520-4140 has been rejected may kindly be quashed and set aside. ii. That the respondents may kindly be directed to give the scale of Rs.800-1455 to the petitioner w.e.f. his regularization by further directing the respondents to give the revised scale of Rs.2720-4260 w.e.f. 01.01.1996.” 2 2. The case of the petitioners is that they were initially engaged on daily wage basis and upon completion of 10 years of daily wage service, their services were regularized. According to the petitioners, their services were regularized in the pay scale of Rs.750-1350/- with an initial start of Rs.770/- per month. At the time of their regularization, they were not aware of the pay scale prescribed for their respective category by the Department and it was only in the year 1998, that a notification was issued by the Department on 01.09.1998, which was duly forwarded to all Superintending Engineers/Executive Engineers, in terms whereof, the pay scale of various categories of employees were revised w.e.f. 01.01.1996. According to the petitioners, they were semi-skilled helpers and they used to operate the machinery installed at Pump Houses and, therefore, they could not have been equated with the category of General Helpers, who were enjoying the pay scale of Rs.770-1410/-. The petitioners through their Karamchari Sangh represented to the respondent- Department for the grant of the higher pay scale of Rs.800- 1455/-, which stood revised to Rs.2720-4260/- w.e.f. 3 01.01.1996. The issue of the non-grant of the pay scale of Rs.800-1455/- with effect from the date of the regularization of the petitioners and subsequent non-grant of the revised pay scale was agitated by them through Arajpatrit Karamchari Mahasangh before this Court by way of a writ petition. According to the petitioners, said writ petition was transferred to the Erstwhile Himachal Pradesh State Administrative Tribunal and renumbered as TA No.3 of 2015. Said petition was disposed of in terms of Annexure P-3, dated 16.09.2015, vide which, the authorities were directed to decide the representation, to be filed by the original applicants within the time period prescribed therein. According to the petitioners, thereafter, in terms of Annexure P-4, they was rejected by the authorities on 01.03.2016 and feeling aggrieved, the petitioners have filed this writ petition. 3. Learned counsel for the petitioners was called upon by the Court to explain the delays and laches in filing the writ petition and further to demonstrate that the original application was filed by the Himachal Pradesh Arajpatrit Karamchari Sangh on behalf of the petitioners, as alleged. The query was 4 specifically put to the learned counsel for the reason that in terms of Annexure P-3, the original application was filed by the Himachal Pradesh Arajpatrit Karamchari Sangh in the year 2003 through its President Sh. Jagdish Kumar Thakur, whereas, Sh. Jagdish Kumar Thakur is not a party petitioner in the present proceedings. Learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that though there was nothing to demonstrate that the said proceedings were filed at the behest of the petitioners, but, this was a fact. 4. As far as the issue of delay and laches is concerned, learned counsel for the petitioners submitted that the petitioners being Senior Citizens, were not aware of the intricacies of law and, therefore, they filed the petition when they came to know of the passing of the impugned order. 5. On the other hand, learned Additional Advocate General submitted that the petition otherwise is not maintainable for the reason that, besides being hit by delay and laches, as was also mentioned in the reply, the petitioners were conferred the due status to which they were entitled to when their services were regularized alongwith work charge status 5 from the due date and Annexure P-4 otherwise also does not suffer from any vice. 6. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having carefully gone through the pleadings as well as documents appended therewith, this Court is of the considered view that in the light of the fact that the petitioners assailed an order passed by the authorities on 01.03.2016 in the year 2022, onus was upon them to satisfy the Court not only that the earlier legal proceedings was filed at their behest but that they were justified in approaching the Court six years after the passing of the impugned order. The petitioners have not been able to convince the Court on either of the said two issues. There is nothing on record from which it can be inferred that the original proceedings, which ultimately culminated into the transfer application was indeed filed at the behest of the petitioners or to protect their interest. Assuming that it was so, then, also the petitioners have not been able to satisfy as to why they have assailed the order passed by the Tribunal in the year 2016 after a lapse of six years in the year 2022. The contention of the petitioners that being Senior Citizen, they filed 6 the petition as and when they came to know of the order, cannot be accepted, because, there is no such averment made in the writ petition that they were not aware of the order passed by the Erstwhile Tribunal in the year 2016 when the same was passed. 7. The contention of the petitioners that they were engaged as skilled/semi skilled employees is not substantiated by any material on record. The petitioners have neither mentioned in the petition that each of them was engaged and as what and except the bald assertion made in the petition that all of them were engaged as skilled/semi skilled employees, no documents have been placed on record to demonstrate this fact. In this backdrop, when one peruses the order passed by the Authority dated 01.03.2016, one finds that the authority has rightly held that as the petitioners stood regularized against the post of Helper, they were paid the pay scale as was payable to the post against which they were regularized alongwith subsequent revision. The Authority also correctly held that the helpers of the Department were not skilled and learned counsel for the petitioners could not demonstrate that the findings 7 returned in this regard in the order passed by the Authority were perverse and not borne out from the record. 8. Accordingly, in light of the above discussion, as this Court sees no reason to interfere with order under challenge and further otherwise also as the petition is hit by gross delay and laches, the same is dismissed. 9. Pending miscellaneous applications, if any, also stand disposed of. (Ajay Mohan Goel) Judge April 22, 2026 (Vinod)