Chandigarh, Sept. 24 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has dismissed petitions from 70 odd part-time workers from Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL), seeking regularisation of their services while holding that those not working against sanctioned posts and for a few hours in a day, are not entitled to seek regularisation of their services. "In the present case, the corporation is free to create a fresh policy for regularisation of those employees who are similarly situated as the petitioners. This court cannot issue a writ compelling the respondents to create or sanction posts for the regularisation of part-time workers, or to frame a specific policy," the bench of justice Harpreet Singh Brar said while dismissing a clutch of petitions pending since 2024. The pleas were from part-time workers from the PSPCL, who had petitioned the high court in 2024 that in March 1999, the government came with a policy for the regularisation of services of part-time employees who had completed 10 years of service with a cut-off date of 2006. "However, the government acted in a blatantly discriminatory manner and regularised 352 employees, but denied benefit to others. They are similarly situated employees but the government created an artificially imposed cut-off date of February 2006 and denied benefit to them," the plea said. The PSPCL on the other hand had said that 1999 policy was confined solely to 25% of the vacant class IV posts. The corporation regularised the eligible part-time employees, thereby exhausting the mandate of the 1999 policy. If their claims are accepted it would lead to breaching the 25% ceiling and result in a violation of the said policy. The court noted that petitioners are part-time workers and are not working against any sanctioned post, and for no more than four hours a day. "Being engaged only part-time, he (they) remains free to take up employment elsewhere and faces no restraint from working for another establishment during the remaining hours. The contention that such part-time engagement makes it nearly impossible for him to secure work for the rest of the day is founded merely on surmises and conjectures and, therefore, is untenable," it said. The court agreed with the corporation's argument that the object of the policy has been duly achieved and the corporation cannot be faulted for rejecting the claim of petitioners who had not completed 10 years of service in April 2006. It further underlined that the apex court has consistently held that the high courts, while exercising their jurisdiction, can't compel the departments to create or sanction posts. "The formulation of schemes, as well as the creation or sanctioning of posts, lies exclusively within the prerogative of the government, and does not fall within the functions of the court," the court observed, adding that establishment of a post is inherently an executive or legislative act, one which is also dependent upon economic considerations. Consequently, the judiciary cannot usurp this authority and confer upon itself the power to create posts, it further recorded while dismissing the pleas....