Cuttack: The Orissa High Court has upheld the verdict of a single judge bench directing regularisation of services of 481 data entry operators (DEOs) engaged in 171 tehsil offices on contract.
The division bench of Chief Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Gourishankar Satapathy has asked for implementation of this order within 3 months. It also directed the state government to all the consequential and financial benefits in accordance with the law as directed by the single judge in September 2021.
While dismissing the writ appeal of the state government, the division bench noted that the DEOs were initially engaged to facilitate issuance of land passbooks but subsequently they attended to all the computerisation-related work of the tehsils. “As it transpired the engagement of the DEOs has been continued from time to time without a break for over 10 years in some cases and even 15 years in certain others. If this was a lapse, then the government is to blame and the DEOs who had no say in it, cannot be denied regularisation on that score alone.”
Notably, the state government had in other similar cases of contractual engagement accepted the court verdict and regularised the services of the persons so engaged for over six years.
