Chandigarh, Jan. 2 -- The Punjab and Haryana high court has said that the state government is expected to act as a parent towards its employees, especially in those cases where they belong to an illiterate class and the lowest strata of society. The high court bench of justice Sandeep Moudgil while allowing regularisation of services of 50 odd workers said that once the Haryana government formulated and published a regularisation policy, it was under obligation to implement the same, particularly when hundreds of similarly situated employees were considered. "The state is expected to act promptly and not allow its officials to remain in a state of inaction, thereby compelling employees to approach the court for enforcement of their legal rights, which otherwise ought to have been considered in due course on the basis of the record available with the respondents in a transparent and fair manner, thereby rendering the cause of action as a continuing one," the court said while ordering to regularise the petitioners as per the relevant regularisation policy when the petitioners first became eligible as per policies notified from time to time in 1993, 1996, 2003 and 2011. It also directed that the petitioners who do not fall under these policies but have rendered services of more than 10 years till December 31, 2025 be also granted similar benefits. The court has given eight weeks time to the government and further said that all consequential benefits, including fixation of pay, arrears along with interest @ 6% per annum from the date it became due till its actual realisation should also be paid. The petitioners were mainly daily wage workers, engaged by various departments. They had sought directions to regularise their services. It was submitted that various policies were framed for regularisation of services of employees of different categories but their cases were not considered. The court discussed the case of a petitioner, Joginder Singh from the bunch, who was engaged as pump operator since 1994 but his services were not regularised under any of the policies. The petitioners had also claimed that a pick and choose policy was being used by the government in regularisation of services. Most of the petitions were filed in 2025. The government had argued that the petitioner in question was neither appointed against a sanctioned vacant post nor did he possess the requisite educational and technical qualifications. Further, he was not eligible for regular appointment under any of the policies cited by him. The petitioner hadbeen engaged through muster roll as a daily wager for miscellaneous labour work. The court said the petitioner has rendered continuous and uninterrupted service to the department for nearly three decades. "Notwithstanding the existence of multiple regularisation policies under which the petitioner was prima facie eligible, the respondent-state failed to accord his case due consideration or extend the benefit of regularisation. Having derived benefit from the services of the petitioner over such an extended period, the state cannot now evade its constitutional and administrative obligations by resorting to procedural objections of its own creation," it said. The court reminded the government of teachings of Bhagavad Gita and said that when the state engages people to serve the public often in the lowest rungs, with the least bargaining power it must remember that governance is not merely about outputs but it is also about how those outputs are produced. "There is, finally, a moral vocabulary that is not foreign to Indian constitutionalism and it runs parallel to our civilisational idea of Rajdharma that the ruler's foremost duty is protection and fairness to those who sustain the state's functioning." "Our ancient texts repeatedly place upon the sovereign an obligation to act with nyaya (justice), anrishamsya (non-cruelty), and balanced governance and the idea of lokasangraha as discussed in the Bhagavad Gita reminds public power that action must serve social stability and the common good, not merely administrative convenience," it added....