New Delhi: A daily wage earner cannot claim regularisation of employment if he has not worked for at least 240 days in a calendar year, the Supreme Court has held. It said that a worker appointed on a day-to-day basis depending on work requirement has no right to the job and that his retrenchment cannot be treated as arbitrary.

A Bench comprising Justices A.R. Lakshmanan and Lokeshwar Singh Panta, quoting an earlier Constitution Bench judgment, said "if it is a contractual appointment, the appointment comes to an end at the end of the contract, if it were an engagement or appointment on daily wages or casual basis, the same would come to an end when it is discontinued."

The Bench said "the courts must be careful in ensuring that they do not interfere unduly with the economic arrangement of its affairs by the State or its instrumentalities or lend themselves the instruments to facilitate the bypassing of constitutional and statutory mandates." It said a direction by the court to continue a person in employment not really required would impose a burden on the State of paying the employee.

In the instant case, Gopinath Sharma was employed on daily wage in casual employment in the Reserve Bank of India. Since he worked only for 58 days in the calendar year, he was not taken for regular employment. The Industrial Tribunal rejected his contention for regularisation and on appeal, the Allahabad High Court set aside the Tribunal's order and directed his reinstatement. The present appeal by the RBI is directed against this order.

High Court order quashed

Allowing the appeal and setting aside the order, the Bench held that the High Court committed a patent error in allowing the writ petition filed by the daily wage worker when it was not established that he was working on a regular basis. It was a matter of documentary proof that the respondent (Mr. Sharma) worked only for 58 days. The High Court wrongly proceeded on the basis as if the daily wage appointment was for a regular post on which a person could be reinstated.

Mr. Justice Lakshmanan, writing the judgment for the Bench, said it was not open to the court to prevent regular recruitment at the instance of temporary employees whose period of employment had come to an end or of ad hoc employees, who, by the very nature of their appointment, did not require any right.

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