Worker getting Rs 2 per day seeks regularisation

Ravikumar of R Vellodu in Dindigul had moved the court seeking to quash the proceedings dated April 19, 2017 of the Director, Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services, which had ignored his candidature while calling for interview to recruit office assistants. 

Justice M Govindaraju before whom the plea came up on admitting the petition ordered status quo on the interview process. 

The petitioner had contended that since he hails from a poor family he was forced to give up education and take up work to sustain his family. On July 20, 2000, he was called to work as a part-time sweeper by the Vellodu sub-Centre of the Animal Welfare Department for a salary of Rs 2 a day. 

He further noted that though the department had extracted work from him through the day, they maintained a record showing that he worked only for two to three hours a day. However, with an expectation that at least after two years, the department will regularise his services, he continued to work there.

But to his utter shock and surprise a notification was issued by the department on May 8, 2012, to fill the vacancies of assistants without considering his name. Since representations given by him to the government had failed to evoke any response, he approached the court by way of a writ petition. But the department filed a counter affidavit blaming the Employment Exchange for not sponsoring his name, Ravikumar said. 

Notwithstanding this, he continued to work as a part-timer hoping to be regularised at some stage. But to his utter dismay, the Department, which had called for interviews for the post of assistants through direct recruitment on April 19 this year, had failed to include his name yet again, he submitted.

Also, on citing a Government Order issued on October 10, 1998, of the Personal and Administrative Reforms Department which had clarified that persons who had been working part-time are eligible to be absorbed as regular employees irrespective of the number of years of service that they had put in and another one issued on February 28, 2006, which mandates regularising casual labourers who had completed 10 years of service, said on the basis of above two government orders a lot of persons were regularised but not him. 

Stating that it is inhuman on the government’s part to keep employees like him unconfirmed for decades, he claimed that even now he is working as a part-time employee for a pittance and deserves to be regularised.