New Delhi, Oct. 26: The Supreme Court has set aside an Allahabad High Court judgment directing reinstatement of some government employees, and ruled that courts will not come to the rescue of “fence-sitters” if they wait to see the outcome of relief petitions filed by similar litigants.

The apex court found fault with the employees for approaching the tribunal for reinstatement nine years after being sacked and only after the relief petitions of some colleagues were successful in the Supreme Court.

The “fence-sitters” moved the tribunal in 1996 after being sacked in 1987.

“The respondents before us did not challenge these cancellation orders till the year 1996, i.e. for a period of 9 years. It means that they had accepted the cancellation of their appointments. They woke up in the year 1996 only after finding that some other persons whose appointment orders were also cancelled got the relief.

“By that time, nine years had passed. The earlier judgment had granted the relief to the parties before the court. It would also be pertinent to highlight that these respondents have not joined the service nor are working like the employees who succeeded in earlier case before the tribunal.

“As of today, 27 years have passed after the issuance of cancellation orders. Therefore, not only there was unexplained delay and laches in filing the claim petition after period of nine years, it would be totally unjust to direct the state to give them the appointment as of today, i.e. after a period of 27 years when most of these respondents would be almost 50 years of age or above,” a bench of Justices J. Chelameshwar and A.K. Sikri said in a recent judgment.

The apex court passed the order while upholding an appeal by the Uttar Pradesh government challenging the concurrent judgments passed by the Uttar Pradesh Public Services Tribunal and the high court directing the state to reinstate certain sacked employees.

In 1986 the chief medical officer, Varanasi, had recruited homeopathic compounders and ward boys by inviting applications through newspapers.

But by an order dated June 22, 1987, his successor cancelled the appointments on the ground of irregularities in the selection process.

A section of the aggrieved employees approached the tribunal in 1987 challenging their dismissal as no show-cause notices were issued to them. The tribunal on August 16, 1991, quashed the termination orders passed against the employees who had approached it.

It may be stated that only one section of the sacked employees had approached the tribunal for relief, while another set of employees did not challenge their termination.

The high court on August 27, 1992, upheld the tribunal’s order directing reinstatement of the first set of sacked employees. The Supreme Court on August 12, 1994, affirmed the order.

It is only after this that, in 1996, the second set of employees, relying on the 1994 judgment of the apex court in the case of the first set of employees, filed a fresh petition before the tribunal for their own reinstatement claiming parity.

The tribunal ordered their reinstatement too. The Uttar Pradesh government’s appeal was dismissed by the high court in 2012, following which the state appealed in the apex court.

Upholding the state’s appeal, the apex court said the normal rule was that when a particular set of employees was given relief by the court, all other identically situated persons needed to be treated alike by extending that benefit.

Not doing so would amount to discrimination and would be violation of Article 14 (no discrimination) of the Constitution.

But Justice Sikri said: “However, this principle is subject to well-recognised exceptions in the form of laches and delays as well as acquiescence. Those persons who did not challenge the wrongful action in their cases and acquiesced into the same and woke up after long delay only because of the reason that their counterparts who had approached the court earlier in time succeeded in their efforts, then such employees cannot claim that the benefit of the judgment rendered in the case of similarly situated persons be extended to them.

“They would be treated as fence-sitters and laches and delays, and/or the acquiescence, would be a valid ground to dismiss their claim.”