India, Sept. 9 -- The Orissa high court has set aside a government order rejecting a contractual college employee's regularisation, saying a welfare state grounded in constitutional values cannot adopt an "apathetic and callous" stand to deny the basic rights of temporary employees who have served for years.

Santosh Kumar Patra, who joined Cuttack's Shailabala Women's Autonomous College as a laboratory attendant in 2000, moved the court after he remained a contractual employee on daily wages despite his long service. In August 2019, the Odisha higher education department rejected Patra's representation for regularisation, arguing that his initial engagement in 2000 was "irregular" because it was not made against a sanctioned contractual ...