Chennai: Madras high court made it clear that administrative delay by a municipal corporation or govt cannot defeat employee rights and, similarly, subsequent GOs cannot nullify earlier accrued rights.Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy made the observation while allowing a plea moved by 35 employees of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) who were recruited on a temporary basis as malaria assistants, tax assistants, office assistants, junior assistants, storm water drain workers, and road workers.In 1999, the govt brought in a scheme through a GO dated May 27, under which employees who were working as of May 4, 1999, were declared eligible for regularization. As per the scheme, they were appointed in entry-level regular posts and paid a consolidated salary of 2,000 per month for one year. They would be brought under a regular time scale of pay after one year and regularised after completion of that one-year period.Thus, as per the scheme, the employees were eligible for regularization by May 27, 2000. However, the scheme was not implemented immediately; instead, the govt issued a GO dated Feb 23, 2006, regularising the employees only from 2006.Aggrieved, the employees moved the court. Opposing the plea, the govt contended that an employee appointed temporarily cannot claim regularization from an earlier date as a matter of right. Refusing to concur, the court held that, through the 1999 GO, the govt granted entitlement to regularisation after one year. Through the GO, employees in service as of May 4, 1999, acquired the right to regularization, the court said.The court made the findings based on the orders passed by a full bench of the court in S Dhanasekaran Vs Govt of Tamil Nadu. Since the order was under appeal before the Supreme Court, the judge directed the GCC to absorb the employees with effect from 2000, subject to the final outcome of the appeal pending before the SC.
