HC stays govt move to regularise outsourcing staff

In a huge setback to the TRS government's initiative to regularise the services of nearly 21,000 outsourced employees working in TS Transco, TS Genco and power distribution company , the Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday suspended the orders issued in this regard. The order was challenged by M Sravan Kumar, an unemployed person from Warangal, on the grounds that this move would adversely affect the chances of jobless youth like him. 

The bench of acting Chief Justice Ramesh Ranganathan and Justice J Uma Devi, which heard at length the contentions of the petitioner and the state, issued an interim order suspending the regularisation process and also directed the power utilities not to proceed on this till further orders. While stating that it was prima facie in agreement with the contention that these outsourcing and subsequent absorption of such employees did constitute a back door recruitment model, the bench sought counters from the state and its power utilities on the issues raised by the



petitioner. 

The state can continue the “services of outsourced staff and even pay better consolidated salaries but cannot pay as per scales applicable to regular employees,“ the bench said.

Senior counsel S Satyam Reddy argued the case of the petitioner who was aggrieved with the decision of the state government to regularise the services of all the outsourced employees in power utilities. He reminded the court of the restraint order passed by the court in respect of regularising the services of contract staff. Despite the assurance, the state has now decided to regularise the services of 20,903 outsourced employees without following any procedure, he said.

Advocate general D Prakash Reddy recalled views held by courts against using workers on contract or ad hoc basis wherever nature of job is permanent. “They are working for 8 hours on par with regular staff. To prevent them being exploited by private agencies, we divided them into four categories and absorbed them,“ the AG said.