HC helps return jobs to staffs of Berhampore Municipality
Kolkata: After almost 26 years with the intervention of the Calcutta High Court, petitioners, who were terminated from service in 1998 following an improper appointment process, got back their jobs at Berhampore Municipality while the court also directed the civic body to grant them their notional benefits.
The bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Shabbar Rashidi was moved by the Board of Councillors, Berhampore Municipality challenging an order of 2013.
The appellants’ counsel submitted that the municipality appointed 110 persons, including the petitioners, against a sanctioned strength of 20 posts without due process of law. Subsequently, the district magistrate issued a notice dated July 19,1998 terminating their services. Since the initial appointment was invalid, none of the petitioners can claim to be employees of the municipality and aren’t entitled to any benefit thereof.
Petitioners’ counsel submitted that in one of the writ petitions against the alleged termination of services, some of the employees were protected by the court and were entitled to receive pensionary benefits on superannuation. The present petitioners were claiming parity with them who were later considered as employees of the municipality.
The so-called termination letter contained blanks with no names of the writ petitioners. As a consequence, there is no order terminating their services, it was submitted.
Court observed, since there was no termination notice issued to the petitioners, the judge had rightly directed the municipality to consider the writ petitioners as employees of the municipality.
Since other employees were appointed by the same process and received the benefits of employment by virtue of orders of the High Court, the petitioners cannot be discriminated against. Berhampore Municipality was directed to afford them the notional benefits for the service period from the date of respective joining. Further, petitioners were allowed to resume their duties.
