State Cannot Exclude Muster Roll Workers From Its Own Regularisation Policy, Supreme Court Holds
A Division Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta reverses the Gauhati High Court, holding that Assam cannot deny regularisation to workers left out of its own 2005 Cabinet decision through clerical lapses, as such exclusion violates Article 14.
The Supreme Court has set aside a 2017 Division Bench judgment of the Gauhati High Court that had denied regularisation to Assam's Muster Roll and Work Charged workers. The Court held that the State of Assam, having regularised nearly 30,000 similarly placed workers under its own Cabinet decision of 22 July 2005, could not exclude the remaining eligible workers on account of clerical errors and administrative lapses for which those workers bore no responsibility.
The judgment, delivered on 21 May 2026 in a batch of eight civil appeals, also clarifies that Work Charged employees constitute a distinct class whose pensionary entitlements were not properly adjudicated below, and separately sets aside a 2024 High Court order that had relied on the now-overturned Division Bench ruling to deny pension claims to Muster Roll ferry workers.
How the Dispute Reached the Court
The State of Assam began engaging Muster Roll workers from 1980 to meet growing manpower requirements for construction, road maintenance, and public works across its sub-divisions. On 23 September 1983, the State Cabinet decided that Muster Roll workers who had completed fifteen years of service would be regularised as Grade-IV employees. Implementation remained uncertain for over a decade.
A 1995 Office Memorandum issued by the Chief Secretary directed all departments to regularise Work Charged and Muster Roll workers engaged before 1 April 1993. Subsequent circulars in 1998 and 2000 reiterated this direction after many departments failed to act. Writ petitions multiplied before the High Court, and conflicting orders led to a Full Bench reference in Jitendra Kalita & Ors. v. State of Assam & Ors.
While that reference was pending, the State Cabinet on 22 July 2005 took a fresh decision to regularise Work Charged and Muster Roll workers engaged before 1 April 1993 who remained in continuous service. The Finance Department concurred in the creation of 5,892 Work Charged grade posts and 25,069 Grade-IV posts. Approximately 30,000 workers were regularised pursuant to this decision.
The Full Bench in Jitendra Kalita subsequently held, on 17 May 2006, that the 1995 O.M. did not reflect a valid policy decision and declared there would be no further regularisation under it. Critically, the Full Bench expressed no opinion on the validity or implementation of the 22 July 2005 Cabinet decision.
A large number of workers who were equally eligible were left out of the 2005 exercise due to spelling errors in names and inadvertent omissions from departmental lists. They filed writ petitions. In proceedings in Ramani Deka and Others v. State of Assam and connected matters, the Chief Secretary and other senior officers filed affidavits acknowledging that approximately 3,720 workers engaged before 1 April 1993 remained eligible and undertaking that a regularisation policy would be framed within three months.
Despite those undertakings, the State in 2012 filed a miscellaneous application seeking the High Court's permission to implement its own policy, citing the Constitution Bench decision in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi as a legal embargo. A Division Bench declined to grant that prayer. Days later, on 16 June 2012, the Finance Department issued an Office Memorandum declaring that no further regularisation of Work Charged or Muster Roll workers would be undertaken, even for those engaged before 1 April 1993.
Writ petitions challenging the 2012 O.M. were allowed by a learned Single Judge on 20 December 2013, who quashed the O.M. and directed regularisation with consequential benefits. The State appealed. The Division Bench of the Gauhati High Court, by judgment dated 8 June 2017, allowed the writ appeal and set aside the Single Judge's order. The present batch of civil appeals challenged that Division Bench judgment.
What the Single Judge Had Found
The Single Judge's reasoning, affirmed by the Supreme Court, rested on several distinct grounds. Work Charged and Muster Roll engagements were a recognised mode of employment under the Assam Financial Rules and the PWD Code and could not be treated as void or non-est. The Constitution Bench in Umadevi bars courts from directing regularisation of casual workers save for the limited exception in paragraph 53, but that exception was not the basis of the appellants' claim at all.
The appellants' claim was rooted in the 22 July 2005 Cabinet decision, which predated Umadevi and had already been acted upon for nearly 30,000 workers. That decision was never challenged and was not nullified by Umadevi. The appellants were covered by it but excluded through the State's own oversight. The State had given unequivocal undertakings before the High Court to regularise left-out workers, and judicial directions had been passed on the basis of those undertakings. The State could not subsequently resile by invoking Umadevi, a judgment that had already been delivered when those undertakings were furnished. The Single Judge also held that seeking the Court's permission to implement its own Cabinet decision amounted to an unwarranted surrender of executive authority.
The Supreme Court's Reasoning on Article 14 and Umadevi
The Supreme Court agreed with the Single Judge and found that the Division Bench's reliance on Umadevi and State of Karnataka v. M.L. Kesari was misplaced on the facts. The Court held that the appellants were not invoking the one-time exception in paragraph 53 of Umadevi at all. Their claim was one of equal treatment under Article 14: the State had regularised nearly 30,000 workers forming one identifiable class under its own policy, and the appellants belonged to that very class. There was no distinguishing feature separating them from the beneficiaries of the 2005 decision. The exclusion was attributable entirely to the State's own clerical errors.
The Court stated the constitutional position plainly: once a policy decision is taken to benefit a defined class, it must be applied uniformly to all who satisfy the prescribed conditions. Selective or partial implementation of a policy is impermissible under Article 14. The Court relied on its earlier decision in Pawan Kumar and Others v. Union of India and Others (2026 INSC 156), where similarly placed employees left out of a regularisation exercise were held entitled to the same relief.
On the State's argument that Umadevi imposed an absolute embargo against regularising employees not appointed against sanctioned posts, the Court declined to accept what it called a sweeping proposition. It drew on its recent decisions in Jaggo v. Union of India, Shripal v. Nagar Nigam, Dharam Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh, and Bhola Nath v. State of Jharkhand, which had deprecated mechanical reliance on Umadevi to deny relief to long-serving employees performing essential and recurring governmental functions. The Court reiterated that Umadevi draws a distinction between appointments that are “illegal” and those that are merely “irregular,” and that the judgment was not intended to penalise employees who had rendered long years of service fulfilling ongoing and necessary State functions.
The State's Conduct as Model Employer
The Court went beyond the Article 14 analysis to examine the State's conduct in detail. It found that the State was fully aware of Umadevi when it furnished undertakings before the High Court in Ramani Deka and connected matters. If the State genuinely apprehended any legal impediment, it ought to have raised those concerns at the first instance rather than continuing to assure the Court that a regularisation policy was under active consideration. The 2012 O.M. was issued only after the High Court declined to grant the State permission to implement its own policy, a course the Court found wholly unwarranted.
The Court held that the 2012 O.M. was designed in a manner that effectively defeated the object of the 22 July 2005 Cabinet decision. Once the Cabinet had taken a considered decision and acted upon it for a large number of employees, it was incumbent upon the State to act in furtherance thereof fully. The Court observed that
The Court also held that the repeated undertakings given before the High Court, coupled with the earlier implementation of the Cabinet decision for nearly 30,000 workers, gave rise to a legitimate expectation in the minds of the excluded appellants. Relying on National Buildings Construction Corporation v. S. Raghunathan (1998) 7 SCC 66, the Court held that the State's own policy decision and subsequent undertakings constituted clear representations that the cases of left-out workers would be duly considered, and the State could not retract from that position selectively.
Work Charged Employees: A Distinct Class
Civil Appeals 4519 and 4520 of 2025 were filed by the All Assam Work Charge Employee Association, a registered State-wide body. The association was never impleaded in the writ proceedings before the High Court. The Division Bench's impugned judgment had, in paragraph 23, treated Work Charged employees at par with Muster Roll and Casual workers and held all three categories disentitled to regularisation and consequential benefits including pension, without hearing Work Charged employees or examining their distinct legal position.
The association contended that Work Charged employees are governed by the Assam Services (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1964, Fundamental Rules and Supplementary Rules, and are extended service benefits including grade pay, allowances, GPF and GIS deductions. Their pension entitlements flow from specific Office Memoranda issued by the Government of Assam, including O.M. No. FMP.48/83/40 dated 10 August 1983 and subsequent memoranda, none of which were placed before or considered by the High Court.
The Supreme Court accepted this grievance. Since the impugned judgment had already been set aside in Civil Appeal No. 4514 of 2025, the adverse observations in paragraph 23 would not survive. The Court clarified that Work Charged employees shall be treated as a distinct class, and their entitlement to pension and other post-retiral benefits shall not be adversely affected by those observations. Members of the association remain at liberty to agitate their claims before the State Government, though the order does not confer any specific right or entitlement on any individual employee.
The Ferry Workers' Pension Appeal
Civil Appeal 4523 of 2025 concerned Muster Roll workers employed in ferry services under the Executive Engineer, IWT, Silchar, appointed between 1993 and 1995. They had been paid grade pay, dearness allowance, and medical allowance on par with regular employees but were denied pensionary benefits. A meeting on 22 September 2023 between State authorities and the Sadou Assam Karmachari Parishad resolved that a proposal for extending pensionary benefits to Muster Roll employees would be submitted to the Finance Department. No proposal including the appellants' names was forwarded. Their representations dated 8 January 2024 and 22 February 2024 went unanswered.
The High Court dismissed their writ petition on 10 May 2024 on the ground that the issue was concluded by the Division Bench's 2017 judgment in State of Assam v. Upen Das, the very judgment now set aside. The writ appeal was also dismissed on 19 June 2024. Since the foundation of both orders had been removed, the Supreme Court set aside the 19 June 2024 order and directed that the appellants be at liberty to agitate their pension claims before the appropriate authority in accordance with law and the applicable policy framework.
Order
The Supreme Court allowed the lead batch of civil appeals and issued the following directions:
The appellants shall be treated as regularised in service in terms of the Cabinet decision dated 22 July 2005, from the date on which the similarly placed 30,000 employees were given the benefit of that decision. The State of Assam shall identify and verify the eligible appellants and, where necessary, create supernumerary posts to facilitate regularisation. Upon regularisation, the appellants shall be entitled to all consequential benefits including fixation of pay in the regular scale, continuity of service, and all applicable pensionary and post-retiral benefits on the same terms as were extended to the 30,000 similarly situated employees.
Retired appellants shall be granted notional regularisation with consequential monetary benefits and arrears from the relevant date until superannuation for the purpose of recalculating pension, gratuity, and terminal dues. In the case of deceased appellants, arrears and other benefits shall be released to their legal heirs in accordance with law. The entire exercise, including calculation and payment of all financial arrears, shall be completed within one year from the date of the judgment. The benefit of these directions applies only to appellants who were working in State departments before 1 April 1993.
The appeals of the All Assam Work Charge Employee Association were disposed of with the clarification that Work Charged employees form a distinct class and the adverse observations in the impugned judgment shall not foreclose their independent claims. Civil Appeal 4523 of 2025 was disposed of with liberty to the ferry workers to pursue pension claims before the appropriate authority. No order as to costs was made in any of the appeals.