Punjab & Haryana HC Orders Regularisation of NHM Contractual Workers With Over Ten Years of Service

Justice Sandeep Moudgil held that decade-long NHM contractual workers are State employees and directed regularisation within eight weeks, rejecting financial constraint and co-terminus project defences.

In a batch of 104 writ petitions, Justice Sandeep Moudgil, sitting singly at the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, directed the State of Haryana to regularise the services of National Health Mission contractual workers who have completed more than ten years of continuous service. The order, passed on 18 April 2026, gives the State eight weeks from receipt of a certified copy to issue the necessary regularisation orders. The lead petition, Neeraj Rani and Others v. State of Haryana and Others (CWP-35408-2025), was filed by Auxiliary Nurse Midwives and other health functionaries who had served without interruption or adverse remark for over a decade. The court held that the State is the true employer, that contractual stipulations cannot override Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution, and that prolonged engagement against perennial public health functions cannot be perpetuated under the cover of a scheme label.

The Dispute Before the Court

All petitioners were appointed under the Human Resources Guidelines of the National Health Mission 2022 and engaged through the State Health Society, Haryana, the implementing arm of the Mission whose governing structure is chaired by the Chief Minister of the State. Advertisements were issued, qualifications were scrutinised, and merit lists were prepared by duly constituted selection committees. Appointment letters were issued by Civil Surgeons as the competent authority.

The initial appointments were for limited durations and described as contractual, but were renewed repeatedly, resulting in uninterrupted service extending beyond a decade in several cases. The petitioners worked as ANMs, staff nurses, lab technicians, sanitation workers, drivers, and in other allied roles. Their prayer was for a writ of mandamus directing regularisation from the date of initial appointment, with all consequential benefits including arrears and promotions, and a restraint on regular appointments in the same cadre to their detriment.

Policy communications of 21 December 2011 and 3 January 2022 had at various stages contemplated a transition from contractual to regular posts, but no such transition had been effected. Similarly situated employees had in certain instances been considered for regularisation, but no consistent policy had been applied to the petitioners.

The Legal Contest

The State advanced four principal defences. First, there was no enforceable legal or statutory right to regularisation. Second, the petitioners had consciously accepted contractual terms that expressly excluded any claim to regularisation, and were bound by that stipulation. Third, the NHM is a centrally sponsored scheme with a 60:40 Union-State funding ratio, the posts are co-terminus with the scheme, and the State cannot unilaterally convert scheme-based engagements into permanent appointments. Fourth, there are no sanctioned posts in the regular establishment, and directing regularisation would amount to judicial creation of posts.

The Union of India, appearing through senior panel counsel in several of the connected petitions, contended that public health falls under Entry 6 of List II of the Seventh Schedule, that its role under NHM is confined to policy framework and financial assistance, and that it exercises no administrative or disciplinary control over personnel engaged by the States. It submitted that no service-related claim was maintainable against it.

Petitioners' counsel countered that the work is permanent and continuing in nature, that appointments were made by Civil Surgeons under State authority, that control and supervision vest entirely in the State machinery, and that the principle of equal pay for equal work applies. They relied on judicial pronouncements of the High Court and the Supreme Court.

How the Bench Reasoned

Justice Moudgil began by situating public employment within the equality mandate of Articles 14 and 16, and the right to livelihood under Article 21. He observed that the State, as a model employer, is held to a higher standard than a private party and cannot justify arrangements that keep individuals in prolonged uncertainty where the need for work is continuous.

On the contractual defence, the court was direct: the engagement cannot be examined as though the Constitution were a silent spectator and the State a mere trader. Fundamental rights are limitations upon State power and are not matters of private disposition. Relying on Basheshar Nath v. Commissioner of Income-tax, Delhi and Rajasthan 1958 INSC 102, the court held that an employee does not waive the guarantee of equality by entering into a contract with the State. To hold otherwise would enable the State to bypass the discipline of Articles 14 and 16 by drafting terms that immunise its actions from scrutiny.

The court traced the doctrinal arc from Daily Rated Casual Labour v. Union of India (1988) 1 SCC 122 and Dharwad District PWD Literate Daily Wage Employees Association v. State of Karnataka 1990 INSC 54, through State of Haryana v. Piara Singh 1992(3) SCT 201, to the Constitution Bench in State of Karnataka v. Uma Devi (2006) 4 SCC 1. It acknowledged that Uma Devi brought doctrinal clarity: regularisation is not a mode of recruitment, and long service alone does not ripen into a right to permanence. However, the court emphasised that Uma Devi carved out a window for irregular, as distinct from illegal, appointments against sanctioned posts where employees have worked for ten years or more without court protection.

The court then drew on the subsequent line of authority. In Nihal Singh v. State of Punjab (2013) 14 SCC 65, the Supreme Court had held that Uma Devi cannot become a licence for exploitation by the State. In Narendra Kumar Tiwari v. State of Jharkhand (2018) 8 SCC 238, the Apex Court found that continuing irregular appointments for almost a decade after Uma Devi was “nothing but a form of exploitation of the employees.” In Jaggo v. Union of India 2024 SCC Online SC 3826, the Supreme Court observed that State instrumentalities bear a greater responsibility to avoid exploitative employment practices. In Shripal v. Nagar Nigam, Ghaziabad 2025 SCC Online SC 221, the court directed reinstatement of workers who had rendered prolonged service, holding that Uma Devi cannot serve as a shield to justify exploitative engagements persisting for years.

For scheme-based employment specifically, the court relied on Vinod Kumar v. Union of India (2024) 9 SCC 327, where the Supreme Court reversed dismissals of Accounts Clerks appointed under a temporary scheme after 25 years of continuous service, holding that the essence of employment and the rights flowing from it cannot be determined merely by the initial terms of appointment when the actual course of employment has evolved significantly. The court extracted five propositions from that decision: what matters is the essence of employment; rights cannot be frozen by initial terms where service has evolved; substantive rights accrued over time cannot be perpetually denied by procedural formalities at commencement; such rights accrue through continuous service; and appointments following public advertisement, written examination, and interview cannot be treated as illegal even if not strictly in accordance with prescribed rules.

The court also drew on Dharam Singh v. State of U.P. 2025 INSC 998, where the Supreme Court set aside refusals based only on financial constraints and absence of sanctioned posts, and directed regularisation with creation of supernumerary posts. It quoted the Apex Court's observation that the State is not a mere market participant but a constitutional employer and cannot balance budgets on the backs of those who perform the most basic and recurring public functions.

A coordinate bench of the Punjab and Haryana High Court in Arvind Rana v. Union of India CWP-20096-2021, decided on 14 November 2025, had ordered regularisation of teachers appointed under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan who had worked for more than ten years, finding that reliance on Uma Devi was misplaced where appointments followed due procedure and petitioners were not backdoor entrants.

On the employer-employee question, Justice Moudgil held that the relationship of master and servant is not determined by the source from which salary is paid, but by the hand that appoints, the authority that controls, and the power that disciplines. The petitioners were engaged through processes conducted under State authority; appointment letters emanated from Civil Surgeons; duties were discharged within the State's health machinery; and supervision, regulation, and evaluation were by State officers. The court held without hesitation that the petitioners are employees of the State, and the State cannot shift that burden to the Union or to the abstractions of a funding scheme.

On the co-terminus defence, the court found that the NHM continues to operate with no definite end in sight and caters to an essential and continuing public function. A programme that has endured over years cannot be treated as a temporary venture merely because it is described as a scheme. The contractual clause that employment is co-terminus with the project therefore loses its foundation where the project itself has no terminus.

On financial constraint, the court was equally firm. The liability, it observed, is not being created by the court's order, it has been carried in substance all along. The State had year after year renewed engagements and utilised services in discharge of its obligations. Having done so, it cannot be heard to say that according recognition to that engagement would impose a financial burden. Fiscal constraint may guide policy, but it cannot become a convenient alibi to sidestep fairness and the obligation to organise public employment on lawful lines.

The court also invoked the doctrine of legitimate expectation, drawing on Union of India v. Hindustan Development Corporation (1993) 3 SCC 499 and Khajjan Singh v. State of Haryana 2015 (1) SCT 604. It held that where a worker continues in service year after year under the steady assurance, sometimes express and sometimes implied through conduct, that his engagement will be renewed, a hope ripened by time and practice takes root. Repeated renewals foster a reasonable expectation that long and uninterrupted service will receive due recognition.

The court also addressed the broader signal that State exploitation of contractual workers sends to private employers. It observed that when the State legitimises or tolerates unfair treatment of its employees, private employers may feel emboldened to adopt similar methods, normalising what ought never to be normalised.

Outcome

Justice Moudgil allowed all 104 petitions. The respondents, the State of Haryana and the Mission Director, National Health Mission, are directed to take immediate steps to regularise the services of those petitioners who have completed more than ten years of continuous service, in accordance with law. Necessary orders must be passed within eight weeks from the date of receipt of a certified copy of the judgment. Pending applications, if any, stand disposed of.