Paridhi Arya
Published on April 28, 2022 at 15:12 IST
Supreme Court Bench of Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Vikram Nath held that the 12,000 employees engaged between 1985 and 1991 are entitle for Cash Compensation and not for employment.
Industrial tribunals, High Courts and Supreme Court have passed many awards in favour of those 11,780 employees asking for absorption as they are temporarily engaged in the year between 1985 and 1991.
“LIC as a public employer, the recruitment process of the corporation must meet the Constitutional standard of a fair and open process. Allowing for back-door entries into service is an anathema to Public Service.”
Justice Chandrachud said, “A public employer such as LIC cannot be directed to carry out a mass absorption of over 11,000 workers on flawed premises without following a recruitment process which is consistent with the principles of equality of opportunity governed by Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution.”
“Such an absorption would provide the very back-door entry, which negates the principle of equal opportunity and fairness in public employment,” Justice Chandrachud said.
The Court decided to set up a new committee which will examine that people who are genuinely employed in LIC between 1985 and 1991. This examination will be completed in 70 days for Class III employees and 85 days for Class IV employees.
The Bench said, “All persons who are found to be eligible on the above norm shall be entitled to compensation computed at the rate of Rs 50,000 for every year of service or part thereof.”
“The payment of compensation at the above rate shall be in lieu of reinstatement, and in full and final settlement of all claims and demands of the workers in lieu of regularisation or absorption and notwithstanding the directions issued by this Court in TN Terminated Employees Association Case,” Bench said.
The Bench said, “The dispute is now of antiquity tracing back to nearly four decades. Finality has to be wrung down on the dispute to avoid uncertainty and more Litigation. Nearly thirty-one years have elapsed since 1991.”
“We have come to the conclusion that the claims of those workers who are duly found upon verification to meet the threshold conditions of eligibility should be resolved by the award of monetary compensation in lieu of absorption, and in full and final settlement of all claims and demands.”