The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday set aside the previous Haryana Government’s policies to regularise the services of contractual and ad hoc employees.
The policies were framed by the previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government to regularise employees ahead of the state assembly elections in 2014.
The High Court has however given six months to the State Government to make regular appointments against these posts and to enable the affected employees to find jobs.
The HC order stated, “Under no circumstances, any adhoc/contract/work-charged/daily wages employees shall be allowed to continue thereafter. The affected employees be given relaxation in age for the period they worked with the state in the next selection process but only once.”
Various policies of Hooda regime were challenged in August 2014 by many job aspirants alleging that the government was resorting to backdoor appointments. The High Court had in 2016 made it clear that the appointments done by the previous government would be subject to the final outcome of these petitions.
More than 20000 employees were regularized ahead of 2014 assembly polls.
After the High Court order on Thursday, the ruling BJP and opposition Congress engaged in a blame game over the issue.
Chief Minister Manohar lal while talking to the mediapersons blamed his Congress’ predecessor Bhupinder Singh Hooda for framing such a policy which has been quashed in the court.
Attacking the previous Congress Government, Manohar lal said that the policy is set aside by the Court due to the previous government which had made such wrong policies. We have also made policies but no such thing has happened with us, he added.
On the other hand, Bhupinder Singh Hooda lashed out at the BJP led Haryana Government for not defending the policies in the High Court. This government has failed to defend the policy in the High Court and employees will have to face the consequences due to this, he said.
Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar also criticized the Khattar Government for not defending the regularisation case in the Court of those employees who had completed 10 years of service.