Chandigarh, March 11 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has said that PUNBUS and Punjab Roadways cannot be regarded as wholly independent or unrelated establishments. "On the contrary, the petitioners and their regular counterparts in Punjab Roadways perform the same functions within a state-controlled public transport framework, under similar operational conditions and supervisory oversight. The distinction between the two entities, therefore, appears to be one of nomenclature, rather than reflecting any genuine functional separation," the bench of justice HS Brar said. The court was dealing with a clutch of petitions from drivers and conductors seeking directions to grant the petitioners the benefit of a minimum of regular pay scale (basic pay + grade pay) along with dearness allowance at par with regular drivers/conductors of Punjab Roadways. The government said that the petitioners cannot claim entitlement to the minimum of the regular pay scales granted by the state government to employees working under the Punjab Roadways. The management of PUNBUS and Punjab Roadways is totally different, and there cannot be any comparison between the employees of both organisations, the state had argued. The court said that the petitioners have been continuously engaged on a contractual basis since the year 2015, i.e., for more than a decade, most of them having earlier rendered services on an outsourced basis. Thus, the petitioners have been discharging their duties, which are akin to the duties of their regular counterparts in Punjab Roadways, for more than a decade without ever being considered for regularisation. The court observed that the state, being a model employer, cannot be allowed to exploit its temporary employees when they have been consistently serving its instrumentality for a significant time period. Such an approach would be violative of fundamental rights of the temporary employees enshrined in Article 14, 16 and 21 of the Constitution of India, it added. Now the government has been directed to grant the petitioners the benefit of the minimum of the pay scale along with dearness allowance, at par with the regular corresponding post employees in Punjab Roadways. It has been further directed authorities would consider the case of the petitioners for regularisation under The Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily Wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees' Welfare Act, 2016. Six weeks have been given to the government to pass a speaking order....