Outsourced Staff Hired by Private Agency Are Not PRTC Employees, Cannot Claim Regularisation: P&H High Court

The respondents were advertised for, selected and appointed by M/s S.S. Service Providers, a private agency, and posted with the PRTC under a manpower contract (paras 4, 16-17). Relying on Jaggo, Vinod Kumar, Shripal and Hans Raj, they sought regularisation after long service (para 5). On 22.04.2026 a single judge treated the PRTC as their employer and directed regularisation, with the old pension scheme for those working before 01.01.2004 (paras 2, 6). The PRTC appealed (paras 7-9).

The Bench held that a master-servant relationship must be proved by documents such as an appointment order, not inferred from the nature of duties or supervisory control, following Raj Kumar Mishra (paras 16, 20). The PRTC never issued any appointment order or conferred any status on the respondents (paras 18, 21). Following K. Jayaram and its own Division Bench in Nishan Singh, it held that outsourced workers cannot claim regular pay or regularisation even after long service (paras 23-24). The PRTC had no disciplinary power over them; Clause 28 of the contract only let it recover losses from the contractor (paras 30-33). The contractor paid their salary and deposited their provident fund as their employer, and "lifting of the veil" would make the place of posting the employer in every outsourcing case (paras 35-38). Section 6 of the 2016 Act requires outsourced staff first to be taken on contract, which never happened (paras 48-51). Jaggo and Pawan Kumar concerned employees directly recruited and later shifted to outsourcing, which was not this case (paras 54-56). Contractual employees on the PRTC's own rolls who were regularised could not be equated with outsourced staff (paras 57-60).