( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA. CWP No.7838 of 2022 Reserved on: 31.07.2025 Decided on: 6th August, 2025 Babli Devi .......Petitioner versus State of H.P. and others ...Respondents Coram The Hon’ble Mr. Justice Satyen Vaidya, Judge. Whether approved for reporting?1 No. For the petitioner: Mr. Vijay Chaudhary, Advocate. For the respondents: Mr.Hemant K. Verma, Dy. A.G. Satyen Vaidya, Judge The instant petition has been filed for following substantive reliefs:- (I) That the respondents be directed to firstly convert the services of the petitioner from Part Time Worker to daily wager from the date of completion of eight years of Part Time service in terms of Notification dated 28.6.2014(Annexure P-8) alongwith all consequential benefits. (II) That the respondents be further directed to regularize terms of 21.2.2019 the services of the petitioner on daily wage basis in Notification dated (Annexure P-9) alongwith all consequential benefits. 2. The petitioner was appointed as Part Time worker at Day Care Center for mentally retarded children at Government Centre Primary School, Bhangrotu, District 1 Whether the reporters of Local Papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes. ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 2 Mandi, H.P. vide office order dated 21.04.2005. Initially, the petitioner was paid Rs.300 per month. Later, her wages were increased Rs.21/- per hour i.e. Rs.105/- per day in the year 2014 and lastly, vide office order dated 04.06.2019, the remuneration/salary of the petitioner has been fixed at Rs.6,000/- per month. 3. The grievance of the petitioner is that for the last more than 20 years, she has been working as a Part Time worker. Her services have not been converted either as a daily wage worker or regularized at par with other Government employees in the State. 4. The petitioner has contended that the State Government has been bringing in policies for conversion of Part Time workers to daily wage workers from time to time and one such policy was notified vide Notification dated 28.06.2014 providing inter-alia that Part Time workers having completed eight years of service on 31.03.2014 in all the Government Departments would be converted into daily wage workers. It is also case of the petitioner that the State Government has also been formulating the policies for regularization of daily wage workers on completion of prescribed years of continuous service. Reference has been ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 3 made to one such policy dated 21.01.2019 whereby all daily wage workers who had completed five years of service as on 31.01.2019 were eligible for regularization in their respective departments. 5. With above assertions, the petitioner has sought the reliefs as noticed hereinabove. 6. The respondents have filed their reply. It has been submitted that Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (for short ‘SSA’) is a centrally sponsored scheme and is being implemented through Himachal Pradesh School Education Society (for short the ‘HPSES’). The engagement of petitioner is stated to have been made as Part Time worker to take care of mentally retarded children under the SSA. As per respondents, the petitioner cannot claim parity with the State Government employees who are selected after due process and through competitive exams, interviews etc. It has also been submitted that the project i.e. Samagra Shiksha is aided by the Government of India to the extent of 90%. Hence, the Union Government was a necessary party. 7. The respondents have further tried to justify their stand by alleging that the petitioner has rightly been paid remuneration of five hours as she was appointed as Part Time ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 4 worker and her services were required for five hours only. As regards the payment of Rs.6,000/- per month as remuneration to the petitioner, it has been claimed that the Government of India has approved such rate for helpers/Aaya’s under the inclusive education for disabled at secondary stage and for such reasons, the honorarium of the petitioner has been fixed at Rs.6,000/- per month. 8. The petitioner has filed rejoinder reiterating the stand taken in the petition besides denying the averments made in the reply. In addition, it has been stated that the respondents cannot discriminate with the petitioner as similarly situated employees working under the SSA have already been regularized. 9. Indisputably, the employment of the petitioner has continued for more than 20 years, which suggests permanency of the work for which the petitioner has been engaged. The petitioner has already reached the age of 54 years. 10. The distinction being drawn by the respondents between the employees of State Government with one like the petitioner, who has been engaged under the SSA for denying ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 5 her the benefit of the policies of State Government is wholly unjustified. 11. Noticeably, respondents have dwelled on its stand that the petitioner is appointed against the specific intervention and she could not be equated with the other contractual employees of SSA. Indisputably, the petitioner is working now for the last about twenty years. Her services have never been sought to be dispensed with or terminated. The necessary inference, thus, is that the respondents require the services of petitioner throughout. In such circumstances the distinction tried to be drawn by the respondents between the petitioner and other contractual employees of the SSA is fallacious. In case the respondents require services on post which in effect is permanent in nature, they cannot seek to absolve themselves by creating fictional or invented distinctions. It cannot be a valid reason that the emoluments in the case of petitioners were drawn from specific intervention. The respondents themselves have admitted that the services of petitioner were continued though on different remunerations as noticed above. It being so the conduct of respondents is clearly exploitative which cannot be sustained ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 6 at the touch stone of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India. 12. The issue being raised by the respondents in the instant petition has already been dealt with and decided by this Court vide judgment dated 17.12.2021 passed in CWP No.3743 of 2021 titled as Vikas Gupta and others vs. State of H.P and others along-with connected matters, where in the case of contract employees of SSA, this Court after placing reliance on the judgment passed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court in State of Jharkhand and others vs. BrahmaputraMetallics Ltd. 2020 (13) Scale 500 has held as under:- “25. Indisputably, the State Government has resorted to the mode of recruitment through contract employment since long. The contract employees have been regularized after putting in certain years of continuous service, as noticed above. The initial recruitment of the petitioners was though under a specific project, nevertheless, the project was for a laudable object to spread education in masses as an initiative of the Government itself. Merely the funding of project to larger extent was by the Central Government, it cannot be said the project was alien to the State Government as it was under the aegis of the State Government that the projects have worked. Importantly, the project that commenced about 25 years back is still in operation. The HPSES has been created to run the project in question as well as ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 7 other related projects. It is not the case of respondents that the project or consequent creation of HPSES was for a limited period or purpose. Even the State Government never had any illusion about the continuance of projects being managed by HPSES. It will be gainful to extract a passage from the Minutes of Meeting To Review the Progress of Absorption of Engineering Staff Engaged Under SSA under the Chairmanship of the Chief Secretary held on 27.8.2020. “Chairman asked Secretary (Education) to explore the possibility of Engineering wing and regularizing the services of all employees of the Society in the Society itself as Samagra Shiksha has to be implemented and for implementation of new education policy, services of these employees would be required. There will not be any burden on the Society as these employees are being paid the regular salary at par with their counterparts in the departments. If these employees are placed in some other department, they would move to the department and other employees will have to be inducted which will be a continuing cycle. He has pointed out that at present salary is being claimed under the project from the Government of India and Government of H.P. in the ratio of 90:10, whereas these employees are inducted in some other department, complete burden will fall on the State Government. He further suggested that if services of these employees are regularised in the Society then Samagra Shiksha Programme will run smoothly and will also help in implementing New Education Policy in the State for which these ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 8 employees have attained expertise”. It becomes evident from above noticed facts that the project in which the petitioners were employed were not temporary in nature by any stretch of imagination. The continuity of the project for more than 25 years as also the purpose sought to be achieved through such project clearly implies that the same is necessitated by inescapable obligations vis-à-vis spread of education in the mass. 26. The State Government has to act as a model employer in a welfare State. It cannot have different yardstick for different persons. Conceptually, the executive authorities have the onerous duty to work for the benefit of the public at large. As far as the mode and manner in which the Government has to achieve its purpose is to be chosen by the Government itself, however, with caveat that the same cannot be irrational, unreasonable or arbitrary. In a State where rule of law prevails, the Government is no exception. Right of equality being one of the fundamental traits of the Constitution, the same cannot be denied at the whims and fancies of the authorities.” 13. The judgment in Vikas Gupta supra after having affirmation from Division Bench of this Court in LPA No. 66 of 2022 was further tested by the respondents in SLP 15289/2024 before Hon’ble Supreme Court without success. 14. Thus, the petitioner cannot be discriminated and is entitled to be treated at par with other employees of SSA, whose services have been regularized, in terms of the State ( 2025:HHC:26498-DB ) 9 Government policies. The petitioner is entitled to firstly conversion of Part Time services as daily wage services and thereafter, regularization of such services after prescribed years of continuous services, in terms of policy dated 28.06.2014 (Annexure P-8) and policy dated 21.02.2019 (Annexure P-9) from due dates. 15. In result, the petition is allowed. The respondents are directed to bring the services of petitioner on daily wage basis, in terms of Notification dated 28.06.2014 (Annexure P- 8) in the first instance and then also to regularize her services in terms of Notification dated 21.02.2019 (Annexure P-9) with all consequential benefits. The respondents shall complete the entire exercise within eight weeks from the date of passing of this judgment. 16. The petition is accordingly disposed of in the aforesaid terms, so also the pending applications, if any. August 06, 2025 (Satyen Vaidya ) (naveen) Judge