SRINAGAR: The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh has granted significant relief to several employees of the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) engaged in migrant vacancies. As per a report by The Daily Excelsior, The court directed the regularisation of their services from the date of their initial appointment rather than from the government order’s issuance.
The 45 petitioner-employees, working as Staff Nurses on a contractual basis, contested Government Order No 15-SKIMS of 2013, which regularised their services from the order’s date (March 19, 2013). They argued for regularisation from their initial appointment under SRO 255 dated August 5, 2003, against migrant vacancies, similar to other contractual employees.
Justice M A Chowdhary annulled the impugned order and ordered the regularisation of the employees from the date of their initial appointment under SRO 255 dated August 05, 2003. The SKIMS authorities were further instructed to provide all consequential benefits resulting from the retrospective regularisation.
Highlighting a violation of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution of India, Justice Chowdhary stated, “It emerges from the facts of the case that two groups of similarly situated employees were considered, and one group was accorded the benefit of regularisation, whereas the petitioners were discriminated against.”
The court found that the SKIMS authorities failed to specify if similarly situated contractual Staff Nurses engaged against migrant vacancies had not been regularised retrospectively. It emphasised that the orders discriminated against the petitioners, denying them equal opportunities in public employment compared to another group of similarly situated individuals.
The judgment deemed the impugned orders legally flawed, emphasising that the petitioners were entitled to regularisation from their initial appointment. The court expressed concern over the willful delay in regularizing the petitioners’ services, causing them undue suffering.
