HC denies back pay to 548 Nagaland PWD workers over doubtful hiring

The Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court has refused to order back salaries for 548 work-charged fixed-labour employees of Nagaland's Public Works Department (Roads and Bridges) whose appointments were flagged as doubtful, The Morung Express reported in its weekly legal digest on Sunday.

Salaries held back since 2020

In a common judgment dated November 2, Justice Robin Phukan dismissed two writ petitions filed by the workers, who had sought salaries withheld from March 2020. Of the petitioners, 450 were from Peren district and 98 from the Tuli Division in Mokokchung.

They were among 1,309 employees whose termination the Nagaland Cabinet approved on September 11, 2024, after a departmental verification found problems such as missing appointment orders and mismatched personal details. The 548 had been placed in a category covering appointments seen as doubtful or possibly bogus. They were told in August 2021 not to report for duty while verification went on, and were terminated through a notification issued on November 6, 2024.

According to the report, only two petitioners produced documents to back their appointments, and the court found that these were replacement orders or internal arrangements rather than proof of a valid appointment.

The court accepted that the "no work, no pay" principle could not be used against the workers, since it was the authorities who had stopped them from working during the inquiry. But it held that an appointment found to be bogus is void from the start, so there was never a right to be on duty or to draw a salary.

Medical Attendant hirings quashed

In two other judgments the same day, Justice Phukan rejected claims for Medical Attendant posts at the Kejok Sub-Centre in Tuensang and the Sungro Primary Health Centre in Wokha, which the petitioners had sought because land for the facilities was donated by their families. The court held that the land-donor benefit under a 2018 government notification goes only to the person first appointed and does not pass to descendants.

However, the court also quashed the appointments of the two people who had been given those posts, because the vacancies were never publicly advertised and no selection committee or interviews were held, in breach of Articles 14 and 16 of the Constitution. It ordered fresh recruitment, open to the petitioners and the current appointees if eligible.

Other rulings

A Division Bench of Justices Yarenjungla Longkumer and Helen Dawngliani on November 6 upheld a Central Administrative Tribunal order to regularise a stenographer at the Central Institute of Horticulture, Medziphema, who had been engaged for 17 years, with seniority counted from November 1, 2019.

On November 5, Justice Dawngliani set aside a discharge order passed by the Special CBI Judge in Dimapur in a case over alleged bribery of about Rs 82 lakh in the supply of rations to the Army in Nagaland between 2012 and 2016. The matter was sent back for fresh consideration within two months; the High Court did not rule on guilt or innocence.