Lucknow: A Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court has directed that a deceased ‘work-charge’ employee of the Rural Engineering Department, who served the government for over 18 years, be treated as regularised from the date he became eligible, holding that his death could not extinguish his accrued right to consideration for regularisation.Justice Indrajeet Shukla also directed authorities to consider the appointment claim of the employee’s son on compassionate basis under the Uttar Pradesh Recruitment of Dependants of Government Servants Dying in Harness Rules, 1974, within two months.The order came on a petition filed by Hasan Ahmad, whose father, Rifakat Hussain, was engaged as a junior assistant in the department’s work-charge establishment in Hardoi on Nov 1, 1985, and died on Aug 11, 2012. His name featured at serial number 58 in a 2005 seniority list prepared for regularisation.The court noted that 172 Group C posts were sanctioned in 2012 for regularisation of daily-wage, work-charge and court-case employees. However, Hussain died before the process could be completed, while similarly placed employees were regularised.Terming the March 17, 2023 order rejecting the claim as passed in defiance of earlier court directions and “ex-facie contemptuous”, the bench held that the right to consideration for regularisation, once accrued, survives the employee’s death and can be pursued by legal heirs.Noting that the petitioner had been forced into prolonged litigation due to repeated non-compliance by authorities, the court awarded him Rs 50,000 as costs, allowed the petition, and directed that its order be communicated to the Secretary, Rural Engineering Department, and the department’s Director and Chief Engineer.
