GUWAHATI, Jan 5 � In a key judgement, the Gauhati High Court cleared the decks for regularisation of muster roll and work charge employees serving in various government departments of Assam, who were engaged prior to April 1, 1993 but left out of the regularisation process.
A single bench of Justice Ujjal Bhuyan recently directed the State Government to take immediate steps to frame necessary policy/scheme to give effect to the commitment made before the court to regularise the services of such left-out employees pursuant to the Cabinet decision dated July, 2005.
Further, the court directed the State to constitute a �Grievance Redressal Committee� at the State level to consider all grievances relatable to the above exercise.
Now, around more than 5,000 muster roll and work charge employees of the government would benefit from the directions issued by the High Court.
The High Court set aside the office memorandum dated June 16, 2012, issued by the Finance Department, wherein a decision was taken that there would be no more regularisation of services of work charge, muster roll or similarly placed workers even if such workers were engaged prior to April 1, 1993, and there would be no more creation of supernumerary posts.
Civil rights lawyer Bhaskar Dev Konwar said that the said judgement of the High Court is in tune with the �constitutional philosophy of the country� and after more than 25-30 years of service as muster roll/work charge employees on meagre wages, now there is scope for regularisation and payment of pension to them, which will go a long way in ameliorating the hardships of such employees.
The court also observed that the perspective of the earlier move of the State Government seeking permission of the court to formulate a draft policy for regularisation of the above categories of employees and for its implementation was �quite bizarre and virtually amounted to surrendering the executive authority of the State. Courts do not run the administration of the country that its permission is required to be taken to give effect to a Cabinet decision.�
