Rajasthan High Court orders regularisation of long-serving mess helpers at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya

Jaipur: The Rajasthan High Court has directed the regularisation of long-serving mess helpers working at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya in Ajmer district, holding that prolonged engagement of workers on daily wages against perennial posts amounts to exploitation and violates constitutional principles of fairness and dignity of labour.

Justice Anand Sharma, in a detailed judgment delivered on January 19, 2026, disposed of a batch of connected writ petitions filed by Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, Nandla, Ajmer, and its workers, including Dhanraj Choudhary and Amar Singh jnv.

The court upheld earlier labour court awards which had ordered reinstatement of the workers, while also setting aside termination orders issued by the school authorities in 2009 during the pendency of earlier litigation. The High Court found that the termination was carried out without seeking leave of the court and amounted to an attempt to overreach judicial proceedings.

The dispute dates back to the 1990s when the workers were engaged as mess helpers to manage kitchen and hostel-related duties at the residential school. Their services were discontinued in 1996 without compliance with Section 25F of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, prompting industrial disputes that culminated in labour court awards in 2001 directing reinstatement with continuity of service and back wages.

Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya challenged these awards, contending that the school did not fall within the definition of “industry” and that the workers were engaged only on a temporary basis to meet contingencies. The High Court rejected these arguments, relying on settled Supreme Court precedent holding that non-teaching activities in educational institutions bring them within the scope of labour laws.

The court noted that despite reinstatement pursuant to court orders, the workers were paid meagre daily wages and were later terminated again in 2009 after the High Court directed payment of minimum wages. Justice Sharma observed that once reinstatement was allowed to operate, the employer was legally bound to maintain status quo and could not terminate services without the court’s permission.

Calling the employer’s conduct arbitrary and colourable, the court held that the termination orders were unsustainable in law and liable to be quashed. It further observed that the mess helper posts were sanctioned, encadred, and involved work of a perennial nature essential to the functioning of the school.

Taking note of the fact that the workers had rendered uninterrupted service for over three decades, the court held that continued denial of regularisation amounted to administrative arbitrariness and exploitation of labour. The judgment emphasised that while illegal appointments cannot be regularised as a matter of right, the State cannot keep workers in a perpetual state of temporariness while extracting regular work.

The High Court directed the employer to undertake the process of regularising the services of the workers with effect from the date they completed ten years of continuous service, subject to verification of eligibility. The workers were held entitled to continuity of service, pay fixation, seniority, and pensionary benefits, though arrears were limited to three years preceding the filing of the petitions.

The entire exercise has been ordered to be completed within three months from receipt of the certified copy of the judgment, bringing an end to litigation that has spanned more than two decades