Nearly 10 years after his death, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ordered the regularisation of service of a warder, who served for almost 27 years. Justice Sandeep Moudgil directed the regularisation of his service from the date similarly situated co-employees were regularised after holding that his right to be considered and treated on a par with them had accrued during his lifetime and could not be extinguished merely because he died before a formal order was passed.Justice Moudgil observed that Singh was appointed as a warder on ad hoc basis vide appointment order dated November 7, 1989, against a sanctioned post and joined service soon after and continued to serve in the jail department for about 27 years. He fell seriously ill, remained hospitalised and expired on November 11, 2016.“The controversy in the present case is not whether the services of late Shingara Singh could be regularised after his demise,” the court said. “The real question is whether the deceased had acquired an enforceable right to regularisation during his lifetime which the respondents failed to recognize and whether such accrued right could thereafter be defeated merely because no formal order had been passed before his death.”Justice Moudgil noted that the government issued instructions dated May 7, 1993, providing for regularisation of ad hoc Class-III employees. Pursuant to the instructions, the services of Warders appointed along with Shingara Singh, “and even those junior to him”, were regularised between 1992 and 2001.Justice Moudgil observed the authorities defended the denial of regularisation by contending that Shingara Singh did not appear before the Departmental Committee constituted in 2003. The Court rejected the plea, noting that there was no contemporaneous record to substantiate it.“Except for a bald assertion in the written statement, no contemporaneous record has been produced to establish that any notice was issued to the deceased, that he deliberately abstained from the proceedings, or that the Committee ever rejected his candidature,” Justice Moudgil said.“Neither the proceedings of the Committee nor the attendance record has been placed on record,” the Bench added, holding that “a plea unsupported by any official record cannot be accepted to deprive an employee of valuable service rights accrued over decades.”The court also found the authorities’ own order dated September 20, 2019, significant. The order proceeded on the basis that the cases under consideration concerned warders appointed through the Departmental Selection Committee and took note of regularisation granted to employees belonging to the same category.“Thus, while acknowledging that the deceased belonged to the same class of employees, the respondents have failed to disclose any rational basis for excluding him alone from the benefit of regularization. Such inconsistent stands cannot receive judicial approval,” the court observedInvoking the guarantee of equality under Article 14, Justice Moudgil held once employees appointed through the same selection process, against sanctioned posts and discharging identical duties had been regularised, denial of the same benefit to one employee without a legally sustainable distinction became “manifestly arbitrary”.The court also referred to its earlier judgment before observing that the State could not continue to extract service from employees for decades and thereafter deny regularization on technical grounds. Justice Moudgil held that the principle applied to Shingara Singh, who had continuously served the department for almost 27 years against a sanctioned post.Another circumstance considered significant was that no order rejecting Shingara Singh’s claim for regularisation had been passed during his lifetime. “Had the respondents genuinely considered him unsuitable, nothing prevented them from taking a reasoned decision while he was still in service,” the court said.Instead, the authorities allowed the matter to remain undecided for years and, after his demise, rejected the claim by taking shelter behind the fact that he had already died. “Such an approach permits the employer to derive benefit from its own inaction and cannot be countenanced in law,” Justice Moudgil held.“This court is satisfied that the right of Late Shingara Singh to be considered and treated at par with similarly situated warders had accrued during his lifetime. The respondents, having failed to discharge their statutory and constitutional obligation at the appropriate stage, cannot now contend that the right itself stood extinguished upon his death. The impugned orders, therefore, suffer from manifest arbitrariness, are violative of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution and cannot be sustained,” Justice Moudgil ruled.The court quashed the order dated September 20, 2019, and consequential communication dated December 31, 2024. The respondents were directed to grant regularisation to Shingara Singh “from the deemed date his similarly situated co-employees were regularised” and calculate and release all consequential benefits, including family pension and other retirement dues. The court further directed payment of interest at 6 per cent per annum “from the date it became due till it’s realisation to the petitioner” within eight weeks from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the order.