The Bombay High Court (Aurangabad Bench) has emphasised that a litigant who approaches the court under its discretionary and equitable writ jurisdiction with unclean hands, by suppressing material facts and having obtained illegal benefits through misrepresentation and pressure tactics, is not entitled to any relief.
The Court, therefore, ruled that an order that rectifies a prior illegality, which was contrary to binding undertakings given by the petitioners themselves, does not warrant judicial interference. The principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ cannot be invoked when the employees have expressly waived their right to claim benefits for past service as a condition of their regularization.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Kishore C. Sant and Justice Sushil M. Ghodeswar noted that the petitioners had furnished undertakings at the time of their regularization, explicitly agreeing not to claim monetary or service benefits for their earlier daily wage service.
The Bench observed that the petitioners repeatedly misled and pressurized officers by using the court’s order as a pretext to secure illegal benefits. Further, the Bench found that the various orders granting them benefits were illegal, passed under pressure, and based on misrepresentation.
Out of 252 regularized employees, only the three petitioners used ‘pressure tactics’ to mislead authorities into passing illegal orders, added the Bench, while viewing the impugned order dated August 04, 2017, not as a punitive action but as an order that “merely restores legality” by cancelling a previously passed illegal order.
Briefly, the petitioners were initially appointed as daily wage clerks with the erstwhile Municipal Council, Parbhani, in 1985 and 1986. Following the termination of their services, they filed writ petitions in 1990, and the court passed an interim order restraining their discontinuation. The Municipal Council proposed the regularization of 252 daily-wage employees.
The Divisional Commissioner granted a one-time regularization to these employees, including the petitioners. This regularization was subject to two specific conditions: (a) The employees had to furnish undertakings that they would not claim any monetary benefits for their past daily-wage service, which the petitioners did; and (ii) The regular appointment orders, issued on 18.10.2001, incorporated this condition.
Disposal of Earlier Petitions: The writ petitions filed in 1990 were disposed of as infructuous on 10.01.2002, with the court clarifying that the petitioners’ employment would be governed by the conditions applicable to other regular employees. Despite the undertakings, the petitioners made repeated representations to various authorities. This led to a “checkered history” of orders being passed and subsequently cancelled between 2003 and 2009.
An order erroneously granted benefits to petitioner No. 3 from his initial appointment date but was quashed on 13.08.2004. Following further representations, the benefits were restored by an order dated 23.03.2005, only to be quashed again on 14.07.2005. Later, on order dated 11.06.2009 was again passed, granting the petitioners the pay scale of clerks from their initial appointment dates.
Later, the order dated 11.06.2009 was found to be illegal and was cancelled by the impugned order dated 04.08.2017, which directed that the benefits of the clerk pay scale be given w.e.f. 31.08.2001. The petitioners challenged this cancellation, arguing it was passed without a hearing and that they were entitled to the benefits based on the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’.
Appearances:
Advocate Vilas M. Humbe, for the Petitioner
AGP B.V. Virdhe, along with Advocates Rani Bharukha-Bora and S.S. Bora, for the Respondent
