LI Network
Published on: January 23, 2024 at 12:00 IST
In a significant ruling, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has upheld the rights of contractual employees engaged by the National Health Mission (NHM), emphasizing their entitlement to the originally contracted wages even following a change in their employer.
The Court held that the delegation of work to a delegatee or sub-delegatee does not justify arbitrary or illegal reductions in contract wages for the same nature of work.
Numerous petitions were filed by individuals initially employed by the NHM in various subsidiary roles. The NHM had delegated their services to Rogi Kalyan Samiti (RKS), which subsequently outsourced the services through another contractor.
The petitioners challenged the change of employer and the subsequent reduction in wages that had been initially agreed upon with the NHM.
Justice Vivek Agarwal, presiding over the single bench, asserted, “There is no iota of doubt that once for the same work, a contract was entered into between National Health Mission and a particular set of employees either in individual or in a collective capacity and certain wages were decided for doing the said work then during the currency of continuance of the said work, wages cannot be adversely affected.”
The NHM argued that once services were delegated to RKS, it was within their jurisdiction to determine the terms and conditions of contractual employees engaged in providing these services.
The Court examined whether the NHM had the right to delegate its work to RKS and if RKS, in turn, could further delegate it to a contractor for ancillary services.
Clarifying the administrative arrangement, the court noted that the NHM did not transfer overall control to RKS or the contractor. Instead, it was an administrative arrangement where RKS managed subsidiary services to allow NHM to focus on its core function of providing health services.
The court stated, “there cannot be any reduction of wages on delegation of work to Rogi Kalyan Samiti or sub-delegation of work to a contractor, and, therefore, respondents have failed to make out a case for the reduction of wages for doing the same nature of work for the same duration in the hands of a delegatee or a sub-delegatee.”
As a result, the High Court allowed the writ petitions.
Case Title: Darvari Singh Sareyam & Ors. v. The State Of Madhya Pradesh & Ors.