Ruchika M Khanna
Chandigarh, August 18
The Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government is going to take the policy route to regularise services of 36,000 contractual and ad hoc employees. This will help the government in circumventing the tedious route of making a new law and getting approval from the Governor.
The draft policy is at the final stage, confirmed Chief Secretary Vijay Kumar Janjua. “We are leaving no stone unturned to frame a policy that will withstand legal scrutiny. The services of 36,000 contractual employees will be regularised soon,” he told The Tribune.
10-year tenure must: Sources
Will help in circumventing the process of making a new law and getting approval from the GovernorSources say the contractual employees who have completed 10 years of service will be regularisedTwo Bills framed and passed in 2016 and 2021 have not been approved by the Governor so far
Initially, CM Mann had announced regularisation of services of all contractual and ad hoc employees, however, the government committee constituted to implement this decision was of the view that services of only those contractual employees could be regularised who were appointed against the sanctioned posts. This figure worked out to be around 4,000.
“Thus, we have decided to take the policy route and regularise the employees who have completed a fixed tenure of service. The term is yet to be decided by the Cabinet sub-committee,” said Janjua.
A meeting of this Cabinet sub-committee was held today evening to give a final shape to the policy. Legal experts were also present in the meet to give their opinion on the draft policy.
Sources said services of contractual employees who had completed 10 years of service in any government department, irrespective of the fact that they were employed against the sanctioned or unsanctioned posts, would be regularised.
It may be mentioned that two Bills related to regularisation of employees had been framed and passed in 2016 and 2021. However, both these Bills, one passed in 2016 and the other passed in 2021 to replace the 2016 Bill, were not approved by the Governor.
In fact, the Punjab Protection and Regularisation of Contractual Employees Bill 2021, passed on November 11, 2021, has not been sent back by the Governor to the state government. After the Bill was passed and sent to the Governor Banwarilal Purohit for his approval, he had raised questions before giving his assent. He had asked the state government to explain how the Bill would withstand legal scrutiny, in the wake of Uma Devi vs State of Karnataka case.
He had also questioned as to how many contractual employees, who had yet not completed 10 years of services, would be regularised after completion of this tenure.
The Governor also wanted to know about financial implications and how many of these employees would be regularised in contraventions with the decision in the above mentioned Uma Devi case.
