Gujarat High Court
C.D. Chauhan And Ors. vs Reserve Bank Of India And Anr. on 13 February, 1991
Equivalent citations: (1991)2GLR1192
JUDGMENT S.D. Shah, J.
1. This petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India filed by 35 Daily wage (Tikka) Mazdoors projects sorry state of affairs in a model banking institution, namely, the Reserve Bank of India towards its employees from whom the work is taken regularly and intermittently since 1983 and who are till date regarded as daily wage mazdoors after expiry of 7 to 8 years of their regularly irregular employment. The grievance of the petitioners in this petition is that despite their availability for being absorbed as regular mazdoors/peons they are being denied the right to absorption and/or regularisation in the service of respondent-Bank while the respondent-Bank confers such right on selected few thereby totally negating the equal opportunity in the matter of employment to these have-notes of the society.
2. The Government which speaks of right to work or right to job at least to an individual in a family can illdefend this petition on any ground. Justice Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court in Baksey v. Board of Regents said:
The right to work I have assumed was the most precious liberty that man possesses. Man has indeed, as much right to work as he has to live, to be free and to own property. To work means to eat and it also means to live.
It is the most precious liberty because it sustains and enables a man to live and the right to life is a precious freedom. Life means something more than mere animal existence and the inhibition against the deprivation of life extends to all there limits and faculties by which life is enjoyed. Article 39(a) of the Constitution, which is a Directive Principle of State Policy, provides that the State shall in particular, direct its policy towards securing that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood. Article 41, which is another Directive Principle, provides, inter alia, that the State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work in cases of unemployment and of undeserved want. Article 37 provides that the Directive Principles, though not enforceable by any Court, are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country. The principles contained in Articles 39(a) and 41 must be regarded as equally fundamental in the understanding and interpretation of the meaning and content of fundamental rights. If there is an obligation upon the State to secure to the citizens and adequate means of livelihood and the right to work, it would be sheer pedantry to exclude the right to livelihood from the content of the right to life. It is true that by affirmative action, the State or its instrumentality cannot be compelled to provide adequate means, but when persons equally situated are sought to be offered the right to work in preference to those who have been working in the State or in its instrumentalities, the Court can definitely jump into action and can perform the role expected of it.
2A. While dealing with the problem posed by the petitioners in this petition, one is reminded of what Gandhji wrote in Young India twenty years before Independence:
According to me, the economic Constitution of India, and for the matter of that of the world, should be such that no one under it should be suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words, everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two hands meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of elementary necessaries of life remain under the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God's air and water are, or ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. Their monopolisation by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust.
The petitioners, the eternal slaves of an extortionate State agency toiling and tormented, handicapped and humbled, raised their cry against injustice, inequality and indignity by this petition because this injustice, animal's cry for freedom and what that freedom means was stated by Franklin Roosevelt where he spoke to a capitalist society:
The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business.
Loseph Stalin, whose misdeeds deserve denunciation rightly stated:
We have not built this society in order to cramp human freedom. We have built it in order that human personality might feel itself actually free. We built it for the sake of genuine freedom, freedom without quotation marks.
It is this freedom which is the cry of the petitioners. "To disarm the strong and arm the weak would be to change the social order" says Anatole France. If justice has to reach this class of people who having served the Reserve Bank of India from 1983 or 1984 onwards till date are to be denied equality in the matter of employment for no justifiable reason, a direction to regularise them and to absorb them in Clause IV employment of Reserve Bank of India would be consistent with constitutional mandate. Dr. Ambedkar, in his farewell caution to the collective conscience of the Constituent Assembly stated as under:
We must our political democracy a social democracy as well, Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means a way of life which recognises liberty, equality and fraternity as the principles of life. These principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are not to be treated as separate items in a trinity. They form a union of trinity in the sense that to divorce one from the other is to defeat the very purpose of democracy. Liberty cannot be divorced from equality, equality cannot be divorced from liberty. Nor can liberty and equality be divorced from fraternity. Without fraternity, liberty and equality could not become a natural course of thing. I would require a constable to enforce them. We must being by acknowledging the fact that there is complete absence of two things in Indian society. One of these is equality. On the Social plane, we have in India a society based on the principle of graded inequality which means elevation of some and degradation of others. On the economic plane, we have a society in which there are some who have immense wealth as against many who live in object poverty. On the 26th January, 1950 we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will be recognising the principles of one man one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long we will do so only by putting our political democray in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has so laboriously built up.
Despite this warning given by one of the founding fathers of the Constitution, the respondent-Bank denies the equality of treatment in the matter of employment to the petitioners. It denies equality in social and economic life to the petitioners.
3. By keeping above principles in mind one is required to approach this petition and the contentions and challenges raised therein Petitioners were employed or were offered work as daily wage (tikka) Mazdoors from 1983 or 1984 onwards. If all the petitioners are employed as daily wage (tikka) Mazdoors in 1986 or 1987 undisputedly all are working as such since 1987. Petitioners have, by filing further affidavit, but on record of this case days of service as tikka mazdoors put in by them. In the year 1988, the highest number of days put in by few of the petitioners are 285 and the lowest number of days put in by one of the petitioners is 94. Charts for the year 1989-90 show that number of them have put in service for more than 200 days. The respondent-Bank in its affidavit-in-reply refers to the statement showing the daily wage engagement of petitioners as Tikka Mazdoors and such statement fully bear our the case of the petitioners that they have been working as Tikka Mazdoors on daily wage engagement with the respondent-Bank since 1984.
4. The question that arises is as to how these daily wage (tikka mazdoors are different from mazdoors or peons regularly employed in Clause IV service of the respondent-Bank. In case of petitioners it is stated that their names are sponsored by local employment exchange, Ahmedabad. Their names were sent on the requisition of the Reserve Bank of India. Their names were sent for the posts of Mazdoors which belong to Clause IV in service of the Bank. Persons desirous of being employed were required to submit their applications in the prescribed application form and such application form, inter alia, required details regarding age, educational qualifications, previous experience etc., supported by copies of original documents/certificates. Pursuant to such applications, candidates were called for personal interview and based on their age, educational qualifications, and performance at the personal interview they were selected for being waitlisted for the post of Tikka Mazdoors, and after their selection they were called upon to undergo medical fitness examination, and after they have been found fit medically they were waitlisted in the waiting list of daily wage mazdoors. Letters were addressed to those selected and waitlisted that they have been selected for the of daily wage (tikka) mazdoors and that it would be at the sweet will and discretion of the Bank to decide as to when they should be employed and as to when they should be thrown out. This letter exhibits 'pleasure doctrine' in its most feudal form and it reaffirms 'hire & fire'; doctrine in its most vulgar form. Various documents produced in support of its procedure of selection are, in fact, not disputed by the respondent-Bank, and Mr. S.B. Vakil, learned Counsel for respondent-Bank relies upon the very documents for the purpose of showing that these employees were not born on regular establishment of the Bank and were therefore not entitled to any of the benefits flowing from regular employment in Clause IV service of the respondent-Bank.
5. The question that arises is as to how daily wage (tikka) mazdoors are differently or adversely situated, viz-a-vis, regularly employed mazdoors of the respondent-Bank. Is mode of their recruitment different? Are qualifications prescribed for the posts different? Are daily wage (tikka) mazdoors, in anyway, ineligible or disqualified for being absorbed as regular mazdoors? Are they rejected by any selection committee in the process of selection?-are these few questions required to be answered, and the very mode of recruitment stated hereinabove makes it clear that the answer to all the questions is in the negative. The daily wage (tikka) mazdoors should possess the minimum educational qualification, namely, Std. IV to VII passed and the petitioners when they applied for the post of daily wage (tikka) mazdoors did possess that qualification. The educational qualification for the post of regular mazdoors in not stated to be different. When the petitioners applied for the post of daily wage (tikka) mazdoors they were not over aged, and on the part of the respondent-Bank in not recruiting them regularly should not disentitle them from their right of being absorbed, especially when on the date of their application and or their initial recruitment as daily wage (tikka) mazdoors they were not overaged. They are not, in any manner, found to be ineligible inasmuch as the selection committee has selected them. In fact, they have been waitlisted and they have been continuously offered work on daily wage basis since 1984 till the date they filed the petition. Even after filing this petition they have been offered work on daily wage basis as daily wage (tikka) mazdoors. Only distinction that is sought to be made out by the respondent-Bank is in the nature of duties tikka mazdoors are when called upon to perform as peon they are performing the duties of peons. According to respondent-Bank those tikka mazdoors who are called upon to work as peons or darwans do not perform and are not called upon to perform the following functions:
(i) delivery of vouchers to deposit accounts dept. etc.,
(ii) taking cash for booking of air-tickets etc., in respect of officers for official work,
(iii) delivery of payment orders to TCI,
(iv) collecting railway tickets on behalf of officials of the Bank in whose cases arrangement for booking of rail tickets for official purposes has been made with TCI,
(v) handling the cases which are of secret/confidential nature.
6. Mere look at the duties would show that these duties can well be performed by the petitioners or any other tikka mazdoors if they are called upon to perform. List of duties which the tikka mazdoors are not permitted to perform do not require any expertise. They are not performed by the tikka mazdoors because they are not called upon to perform the same. Rest of the duties which the tikka mazdoors perform are similar and identical to the duties performed by regular mazdoors. Therefore, nature of work also does not and should not make any difference.
7. The respondent-Bank denied the benefit of regularisation of the petitioners who have worked as tikka mazdoors since 1984 till date. According to respondent-Bank tikka mazdoors are not employees of the Bank. The Reserve Bank of India provides work of a particular nature on daily wage basis to Tikka Mazdoors in contingency of absence of regular Mazdoors. Reserve Bank has specific cadre of Mazdoors in the Issue Department of Reserve Bank of India specific ratio of 4 Coin Note Examiners to one Mazdoors is required to be maintained for smooth functioning of the department. It is the case of the respondent-Bank that wide absenteeism prevails in this class of employees, particularly, during certain seasons, and therefore to keep the work in the Issue Department going smoothly the respondent-Bank is required to engage on purely casual basis tikka mazdoors in contingencies in which required strength of mazdoors to assist the Coin Examiners in the Cash/Issue Departments is not available inspite of available leave reserves. Such requirement is highly contingent, uncertain and fluctuating according to respondent-Bank. For this purpose, the respondent-Bank maintains a list of Tikka Mazdoors who report to Reserve Bank Office daily at about 9-30 a.m. to ascertain whether work is available. Requirement of Tikka Mazdoors is decided daily at the commencement of work. However, those who report for work are not under the employment of the respondent-Bank and they are provided work only on casual basis. It is admitted that at times Tikka Mazdoors are given work even during absenteeism of peons or Darwans. However, the educational qualifications prescribed for the post of peons are higher and for the post of Darwans in a banking institution like Reserve Bank some stringent requirements to the cadre of Darwan is made exclusively from Ex-servicemen. Leaving aside for the time being the post of peons and Darwans, if one concentrates on the post of regular Mazdoors one finds that there is no justification for denying regular appointment to the petitioners for the post of regular Mazdoors. When the petitioners and other identically situated persons were enlisted to work as daily wage (tikka) mazdoors after undergoing due selection process stated hereinabove there was no justification in denying to them the post of regular mazdoors. When the Reserve Bank tried to fill in the posts regular Mazdoors in its regular establishment by giving fresh advertisement and by preparing list of 120 persons in total disregard of the claims of the petitioners for such posts, petitioners knocked the doors of this Court for justice, and justice in a wider sense, as stated hereinabove, would mean equality, social and economic preservation of individual's dignity and providing opportunity for development of the individual. Development is there if people are there, sans people development is de-humanised, and law has survival value only if it cares for men. The Reserve Bank of India seek to deny this social and economic justice to these petitioners on the justification stated.
8. The first defence to the just claim of the petitioners is that the petitioners have applied for relief directing the respondent-Bank to regularise the petitioners' services. According to Mr. Vakil, process of regularisation does not mean that the Court can out-step the limits of law and can make something legal which was not legal. According to him if lawful thing is done, but in an irregular manner, the Court can regularise that irregular manner. He submits that when there is no lawful employment of the petitioners by respondent-Bank, the respondent-Bank having not recruited the petitioner to the cadre of Clause IV Mazdoors, question of regularisation does not arise. The respondent-Bank has adopted a method of mode of recruiting daily wage (tikka) mazdoors to meet with its contingent requirements. The respondent-Bank has, thereby not committed any irregularity. Such persons who are offered contingent work on daily wage basis cannot claim any right of being regularised. When initial appointment is lawful, but there is some irregularity in the process of recruitment power of regularisation can be exercised. However, in this cases, submits Mr. Vakil, there is no lawful appointment, and hence, question of regularisation does not arise. In this behalf Mr. Vakil invites my attention to the decision of this Court in the case of Govindbhai Somabhai Nai v. State of Gujarat and Ors. . The case was under the Bombay Land Revenue Code. There was delegation of power by State Government to District Panchayat for granting permission to non-agricultural use. There was further scope of delegation from District Panchayat to Taluka Panchayat. The Government passed two orders, one delegating powers to District Panchayat and by the second directions issued to District Panchayat to delegate the powers in a given case to Taluka Panchayat. District Panchayat, however, did not delegate the powers to Taluka Panchayat, yet the Taluka Panchayat i.e., Taluka Development Officer exercised powers and granted permission for non-agricultural use. The petitioner objected for the same. Thereupon, petitioners approached the Court and requested the Court that they have already put their land for non-agriculatural use because of permission granted by Taluka Development Officer and that the Court should regularise said permission even if it is found that the Taluka Development Officer has no such power. It was in this context that this Court observed that the officer exercising power was totally an intruder inasmuch as he has no power to grant permission for non-agricultural use of agricultural land. Exercise of powers by him was ab initio void and nullity. Such orders passed by an officer who has no authority cannot be protected or saved by invoking the de facto doctrine. I fail to appreciate as to how this principle would apply to the facts and circumstances of the present case. The authority that employed the daily wage (tikka) mazdoors is the Reserve Bank of India. It is not its case that it does not possess the authority or power to employ daily wage that it does not possess the authority or power to employ daily wage (tikka) mazdoors. While employing daily wage (tikka) mazdoors it has, in fact followed the procedure which is required to be followed for the purpose of recruiting regular mazdoors of Clause IV service. Petitioners were qualified and eligible for being recruited to the post of daily wage (tikka) mazdoors. They were, in fact, waitlisted and offered work thereafter since 1984 till 1990. One fails to understand as to how the principle of law enunciated in the case of Govindbhai Somabhai (supra) applies to the facts and circumstances of this case.
9. What is then meant by regularisation? The answer is to be found in recent decision of Supreme Court, and when Mr. Vakil is confronted with the said decision of the Supreme Court, there is no defence to the action of the respondent-Bank in not regularising the present petitioners to the post of regular mazdoors.
10. In this connection, my attention is drawn to the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Randhir Singh v. Union of India and Ors. . In that case the Court was called upon to apply the principle of equal pay for equal work. The Court found that though the equation of posts and equation of pay are matters primarily for the Executive Government and expert bodies like the Pay Commission and not for Courts but where all things are equal, that is where all relevant considerations are the same, persons holding identical posts may not be treated differentially in the matter of their pay merely because they belong to different departments. This very principle was applied in the case of Dhirendra Chamoli and Anr. v. State of U.P. . To a claim for equal pay for equal work put forward by casual workers of Nehru Yuvak Kendra, Dehradun, the defence of Government of India was that the Nehru Yuvak Kendra was a temporary organisation running since last 12 years and that there were no sanctioned posts of Clause IV employees. Supreme Court negatived the contention in the following words:
This argument lies ill in the mouth of the Central Government for it is an all too familiar argument with the exploiting class and a welfare State committed to a socialist pattern of society cannot be permitted to advance such an argument. It must be remembered that in this country where there is so much unemployment, the choice for the majority of the people is to starve or to take employment on whatever exploitative terms are offered by the employer. That fact that these employees accepted the employment with full knowledge that they will be paid only daily wages and the will not get the same salary and conditions of service as other Clause IV employees, cannot provide an escape to the Central Government to avoid the mandate of equality enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution. This article declares that there shall be equality before law and equal protection of the law and implicit in it is the further principle that there must be equal pay for work of equal values.
Once again, in the case of Surinder Singh and Anr. v. The Engineer in Chief, C.P.W.D. and Ors. , the Court observed that the Central Government, the State Government and likewise, all public sector undertakings are expected to function like model and enlightened employees. However, the question in the context of regularisation of casual employees directly arose before Supreme Court in the case of Daily rated casual labour employed under P and T Department through Bharatiya Dak Tar Mazdoor Manch v. Union of India , Petitioners before the Supreme Court were daily rated casual labourers in the P & T Dept. like the present petitioners who are daily rated (tikka) mazdoors. The complaint of the petitioners before the Supreme Court was that even though they have been working in the department since last more than 10 years, (in the present case since more than 5 to 7 years) the wages paid to them were very low and far less than the salary and allowances paid to regular employees of P & T Department, and therefore, they prayed that they should be regularised and absorbed in the regular services of the Union of India. Their case was that they were being exploited by the Union of India. Justice E.S. Venkataramaiah, speaking for the Court found that the petitioners before the Supreme Court have been working continuously for more than an year in the Department, and some of them have been engaged as casual labourers for nearly 10 years. They were rendering same kind of service which is being rendered by the regular employees doing the same type of work. The Court found that despite Articles 38(2) and 37 of the Constitution of India they were subjected to hostile discrimination. The Court observed as under:
It is urged that the State cannot deny at least the minimum pay in the pay scales of regularly employed workmen even though the Government may not be compelled to extend all the benefits enjoyed by regularly recruited employees. We are of the view that such denial amounts to exploitation of labour. The Government cannot take advantage of its dominant position, and compel any worker to work even as a casual labourer on starving wages. It may be that the casual labourer has agreed to work on such low wages. That he has done because he has no other choice. It is poverty that has driven him to that state. The Government should be a model employer. We are of the view that on the facts and in the circumstances of this case, the classification of employees into regularly recruited employees and casual employees for the purpose of paying less than the minimum pay payable to employees in the corresponding regular cadres particularly in the lowest rungs of the department where the pay scales are the lowest is not tenantable.
Constitution philosophy enshrined in Articles 38, 41 and 37 of the Constitution of India is thereafter summed up in the following words:
India is a socialist republic. It implies the existence of certain important obligations which the State has to discharge. The right to work, the right to free choice of employment, the right to just and favourable conditions of work, the right to protection against unemployment, right to everyone who works to just and favourable remuneration ensuring a decent living for himself and for family, the right of everyone without discrimination of any kind to equal pay for equal work, the right to rest, leisure, reasonable limitation on working hours, and periodical holidays with pay, the right to form trade unions and the right to join trade unions of one's choice and the right to security of work or some of the rights which have to be ensured by appropriate legislative and executive measures. It is true that all these rights cannot be extended simultaneously. But they do indicate the socialist goal. The degree of achievement in this direction depends upon the economic resources, willingness of the people to produce and more than all the existence of industrial peace throughout the country. Of those rights the question of security of work is of utmost importance. If a person does not have the feeling that he belongs to an organization engaged in production he will not put forward his best effect to produce more. That sense of belonging arises only when he feels that the will not be turned out of employment the next day at the whim of the management. It is for this reason it is being repeatedly observed by those who are in-charge of economic affairs of the countries in different parts of the world that as far as possible security of work should be assured to the employees so that they may contribute to the maximisation of production. It is again for this reason that managements and the Governmental agencies in particular should not allow workers to remain as casual labourers or temporary employees for an unreasonably long period of time. Where is any satisfaction to keep persons as casual labourers for years as is being done in the Postal and Telegraphs Depts? It is for paying the lower wages? Then it amounts to exploitation of labour. Is it because you do not know that there is enough work for the workers?
To add to these line of authorities, there is recent decision of Supreme Court in the case of The Dharwad District P.W.D. Literate Daily Wages Employees Association v. State of Karnataka and Ors. . In this case the petitioners applied for direction to confirm the daily and monthly rated employees as regular Govt. servants and for payment of normal salary at the rates prescribed for the appropriate categories of Govt. servants and other service benefits. After undertaking exercise of referring to the binding precedents of the Court rendered within the current decade the Supreme Court directed the State Government to regularise the casual/daily rated employees as per the directions contained in the judgment. Security of service and equal pay for equal work were the twin objectives which are to be achieved by regularising casual employment within reasonable period. That is the constitutional goal to our socialistic policy. The present case is not, in anyway, different from the case before the Supreme Court. The casual or daily rated employment of the petitioners has continued rather too long. Even when vacancies have occurred or sanctioned posts were available the Reserve Bank of India did not think it fit to recruit and regularise the present petitioners. It instead proceeded to prepare separate list by following the very procedure of selection which is being followed for the purpose of recruiting Tikka Mazdoors. When the daily wage (tikka) mazdoors were available for recruitment and when they have already worked in the Bank for more than five years, i.e., from 1984 onwards, there was no justification in denying their just claim for absorption and or regularisation. It was not case of non-availability of sanctioned posts. Even in such cases the Supreme Court was directed regularisation of employees.
11. Therefore, I am of the opinion that the present case is fully governed by the decisions of the Supreme Court in the case of Dharwad Dist. P.W.D. Literate Daily Wages Employees Association and Ors. v. State of Karnataka and Ors. (supra) as well as in the case of Daily Rated Casual Labour employed under P & T Dept. through Bharatiya Dak Tar Mazdoor Manch v. Union of India (supra).
12. Mr. P.S. Chari, learned Advocate for petitioners, has in this connection invited my attention to unreported decisions of High Courts of Rajasthan and Punjab & Haryana. In these decisions respective High Courts were called upon to issue directions to Reserve Bank of India to regularise the daily rated (tikka) mazdoors. However, the principle applied by both these High Courts is one same which is enunciated by the Supreme Court and I do not think it is necessary to refer to said decisions extensively. Based on the above conclusions I am of the opinion that the claim of the present petitioners for regularisation of their services as Regular Mazdoors in Clause IV employment of the Reserve Bank of India is undefendable. Any attempt to thwart such claim is an attempt to perpetuate exploitation or an attempt of extracting work from humans by paying starving wages. It is expected of Reserve Bank as model employer to see that the petitioners and persons similarly situated are regularised at the earliest and are provided the same equal treatment which they are entitled to under our Constitutional frame work.
13. The conduct of the respondent-Bank is reprehensible and falls for short of expectation of a model employer. Its desire to continue daily wage (tikka) mazdoors as such for all time to come in the state of lamentable ad hocism becomes apparent if one refers to its circular. Condition No. 2 of the circular reads as under:
While engaging the service of tikka mazdoors/badli worker, it should be ensured that his services engaged should not exceed 240 days in a year, i.e., from the date of his first engagement till the completion of one year.
From the said condition it becomes clear that like any scheming private employer it has issued instructions that any tikka mazdoors that is engaged in service of the Bank in daily wages should not be permitted to exceed 240 days in an year from the date of his first engagement till completion of one year. The object is obvious. The object is to see that such tikka mazdoor does not claim the benefit flowing from the Labour Laws and does not claim the right of permanent absorption. The Bank, in fact, wants such daily wage (tikka) mazdoors to work as such throughout their life. This conduct of the respondent-Bank, to say the least, deserves denunciation and reminds one of a feudal lord employing mazdoors on meagre wages to work for him throughout their life.
14. In the result, petition succeeds. The respondents are directed to regularise the petitioners to the post of regular mazdoors in regular employment of the respondent-Bank and to grant them all other benefits flowing from such regularisation. I could have directed the respondent-Bank to regularise these persons in the respondent-Bank on expiry of at least period of one or two years from the date of their initial engagement, but since the petitioners have also come to Court in 1987 only and since claims of other persons may also intervene would direct the respondent-Bank to regularise the petitioners as Clause IV regular mazdoors with effect from 1-10-1987, i.e., the date after the institution of present petition and to pay to the petitioners all the benefits flowing from such regularisation. The respondents are directed to regularise the petitioners from the date stated hereinabove, i.e., 1-10-1987 by 31st May, 1991. Rule is made absolute accordingly with no order as to costs.