Work-charged employees are engaged for specific projects, not on a permanent basis, and do not typically enjoy the same benefits as regular staff, although they can be regularized based on seniority and service rules. Regularisation converts this temporary status to permanent, often following court rulings that consider long-term service as creating a legitimate expectation of regular employment. [1, 2, 3, 4] 


Key aspects of work-charged service and regularisation include:

• Definition & Status: Work-charged employees are typically hired for a specific “work” or project and their services often terminate upon project completion. Their engagement is often dependent on project-specific funding.
• Regularisation Procedures: Regularisation is often managed through departmental schemes based on seniority-cum-merit and the availability of regular vacancies. Some policies, such as those discussed in, reserve a percentage of vacancies (e.g., 50%) for the regularization of existing work-charged staff.
• Service Benefits & Pension: Services rendered as work-charged, if followed by regularisation, may be counted toward pensionary benefits. For instance, according to a recent Supreme Court judgment, the court ruled that a portion of the work-charged service can be considered for pension, often calculated by counting a portion of the total service rendered before regularization (e.g., 1 year for every 5 years).


• Judicial Viewpoint: Courts have often ruled against the unfair termination of long-term contractual or work-charged employees, stating that continuous, long-term service (e.g., over 10 years) cannot be ignored and that such employees are eligible for regularization. [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] 

For more information on legal cases and specific judgments regarding this topic, you can search for resources on Indian Kanoon and SCC Online.

• Key Legal Precedents:

• Prem Singh vs The State Of Uttar Pradesh (2019)

• Supreme Court of India – Civil Appeal No. 3155 of 2023
• Gauhati High Court – WP(C) No. 74(K) of 2016
• Allahabad High Court – WRIT A No. 60352 of 2015
• Supreme Court on Pension for Regularized Workers

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[1] https://indiankanoon.org/search/?formInput=work+charge+service
[2] https://www.casemine.com/commentary/in/regularisation-of-work-charged-employees:-insights-from-state-of-punjab-v.-bahadur-singh-and-others/view
[3] https://elegalix.allahabadhighcourt.in/elegalix/WebDownloadOriginalHCJudgmentDocument.do?translatedJudgmentID=14741
[4] https://www.facebook.com/livelaw.in/videos/contractual-is-not-a-licence-to-exploit-supreme-court-orders-regularisationafter/26335045822748619/
[5] https://indianexpress.com/article/legal-news/punjab-and-haryana-high-court-pspcl-widow-pension-regularisation-10683889/
[6] https://api.sci.gov.in/supremecourt/2018/12822/12822_2018_4_1504_44146_Judgement_28-Apr-2023.pdf
[7] http://ghconline.gov.in/Judgment/WPCK742016.pdf
[8] https://www.freelaw.in/legalnews/Supreme-Court-A-portion-of-the-work-charged-service-can-be-computed-for-a-pension-rather-than-the-entire-service
[9] https://www.scconline.com/blog/post/2023/05/04/pension-calculated-after-regularisation-of-work-charged-employees-supreme-court/

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