The Supreme Court on 9 November 2022 dismissed an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government against a Madras High Court order which granted relief to a sweeper employed in a Government Higher Secondary School.
The High Court in its order had granted V. Annamuthu the benefit of regular appointment.
A Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, Justices Hima Kohli and JB Pardiwala dismissed an appeal filed by the Tamil Nadu government against the Madras High Court order.
While dismissing the appeal, CJI Chandrachud stated that the Court would not hear a petition in which the government is asserting its authority over a “Safai Karamchari (a person engaged in, or employed for any sanitation work).”
CJI DY Chandrachud in his observation said, “A man served the school for 22 years. At the end of those 22 years, the person goes home without gratuity, pension…This is the lowest strata of our society. How can the government go against a poor sweeper? The might of the government against a Safai Karamchari? Sorry. We’re dismissing.”
The respondent was a Sweeper/Scavenger in a Government Higher Secondary School on a part-time basis, where he had worked for the past 22 years. Tamil Nadu government contended that because there were no regular vacancies, he could not be granted the benefit of regular appointment as a part-time employee.
In the impugned order, the Madras High Court had observed: “This Court, even otherwise, cannot imagine a school having thousands of children to be looked after for health and hygiene with the aid of a part-time employee, that too, even a single Sweeper. We, therefore, find that the State Government rightly came up with a scheme for regular appointments…We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned Judgment on the ground that the post of a Sweeper or Scavenger in a Government school is a sine qua non and such post deserves to be made available to an institution keeping in view the nature of the requirement.”
(with inputs from Live Law)
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