The high court of Himachal Pradesh said on Saturday that the state must act like a model employer, irrespective of persons or parties in power.
The court held that the extension of service benefits to one kind of temporary appointment is applicable to similar temporary appointments with different nomenclature.
A division bench comprising justice Vivek Singh Thakur and justice Bipin Chander Negi passed the order on a petition seeking directions on the extent of benefits of contract service.
One of the petitioners had served as junior basic training (JBT) teacher on contract and was later appointed on regular basis as “Shastri”.
The second petitioner was appointed as a shastri after serving as a contractual JBT teacher, albeit without a break in service.
The court held that where an employee has served contractually on a different post and has been regularised on some other post, his ad-hoc tenure should be counted for pension.
Whereas, the service of a contractual employee appointed on regular basis on the same post without interruption has to be counted for annual increments and pension.
The bench observed that despite directions of the courts in multiple cases, the state continues to formulate, adopt and practise exploitative policies to avoid extension of legitimate benefits to the employee.
The state tries to deprive employees of benefits by changing nomenclatures of posts and schemes, the court observed.
The high court ordered extension of actual consequential financial benefits to the petitioner three years prior to filing of petition and the benefits beyond three years will be provided on notional basis.