Supreme Court: Daily-wage workers made permanent by 1988 Gujarat Resolution get last-day-of-June increment and revised pension
The question: Whether retired daily-wage skilled workers of the Gujarat Irrigation Department could be denied the increment that fell due on the day after retirement merely because they were described as daily wagers
The Supreme Court has allowed an appeal by retired Gujarat Irrigation Department workers and set aside a Division Bench order of the Gujarat High Court that denied them the benefit of an annual increment falling due on 1 July, the day after their retirement on 30 June. The Bench of Justice Sanjay Kumar and Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva held that the State could not resist the claim by calling the workers daily wagers, because a Government Resolution of 17 October 1988 had made them permanent for pay, allowances, pension and retirement benefits. The appellants had retired on 30 June of various years. They said the increment that fell due on 1 July was wrongly refused. A learned Judge of the High Court accepted their claim by order dated 26.09.2023, holding that the issue was no longer open after the Supreme Court's decision in Director (Administration and Human Resources), KPTCL v. C.P. Mundinamani (2023) 14 SCC 411, decided on 11.04.2023. The learned Judge also directed payment of arrears, a verification exercise, revision of pension and other retiral benefits, and interest at 6 per cent if the exercise was not completed in time. The State and its authorities appealed (LPA No. 100 of 2025) in respect of Special Civil Application No. 20921 of 2022, filed by Chhaganbhai Kohyabhai Pateliya and 18 others. Before the Division Bench they raised a new ground, that the writ petitioners were daily wagers. By oral order dated 09.01.2025 the Division Bench accepted this and quashed the order of the learned Judge. The order was challenged before the Supreme Court by Chhaganbhai Kohyabhai Pateliya and 11 others.