Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao of the Hyderabad High Court on Friday granted relief of regularisation to nearly 450 field operators of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) working in the Eastern Offshore Asset (EOA). These operators were slogging in the ONGC for about two decades without job security.
The judge was allowing the cases filed by the filed operators. They have been working from 1995. Initially they were engaged by contractors for the EOA at Rajamundry and Kakinada. Later they were asked to form cooperative societies and their services were taken through these societies. Then in 2004, 2008 and then 2012 they were given contractual tenure appointments for four years. When the ONGC initiated recruitment for these posts from the open market, ignoring the claims of the petitioners, they approached the court for regularization.
Initially, another single judge granted the relief of regularisation. The ONGC approached the division bench and filed writ appeal and the bench remitted the matter back to single judge for comprehensive adjudication.
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After hearing Vedula Srinivas, counsel for the petitioners, Justice Rao perused the records and traced the history of the ONGC utilizing the services of these petitioners.
The objection of the ONGC that regularization cannot be given for these people as they are not appointed through regular selection procedure was rejected. The services of each field operator will have to be regularised from the date when he completes 240 days of service after being given contractual appointment, with all consequential benefits.