Sukhendu Bhattacharjee v. State of Assam
Supreme Court of India2026 INSC 523Bench: Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta
The Supreme Court held that where the State has, by a conscious policy decision, regularised a defined class of long-serving casual or muster-roll workers — in this case nearly 30,000 workers regularised under a Cabinet decision of 22 July 2005 — it cannot thereafter deny the same benefit to workers who fall squarely within the same defined class but were administratively left out of the exercise. Such selective exclusion of similarly situated employees offends Article 14 of the Constitution and the equality principle embedded in service jurisprudence. Crucially, the Court clarified that the principles laid down by the Constitution Bench in Secretary, State of Karnataka v. Umadevi (2006) — which restrict regularisation of irregularly engaged employees — cannot be mechanically invoked by the State to defeat legitimate claims that arise out of long and continuous service and the State's own implemented policy decision. Umadevi is not a one-time amnesty that the State may invoke to wash its hands of further obligations; on the contrary, where the State has itself chosen to extend regularisation as a policy measure to a defined class, the principle of equal treatment requires that all eligible members of that class be included. The Court further reproached the State for repeatedly assuring courts over the years that the left-out workers would be considered, and then relying on technical objections to renege on those assurances. As a 'model employer', the State is held to a higher standard of fairness and is precluded from such conduct. The State of Assam was accordingly directed to regularise the left-out muster-roll workers in accordance with the very policy under which the 30,000 workers had earlier been regularised.